Ever since Donald Trump became the U.S. president in January 2017, he has significantly increased his use of Twitter to communicate both official White House business and his personal opinions.

Trump currently has 52.4 million Twitter followers. His account is often the first source of news rather than White House spokespersons.

CGTN analyzed Trump's tweets on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from January 20, 2017, to June 1, 2018.

The graphic above lists the number of Trump's tweets mentioning the DPRK each month, starting from his presidential inauguration, January 20, 2017. Trump's tweet density is based on a manual search of @realDonaldTrump's Twitter feed up until June 1, 2018. The search term is "North Korea." 

The adjectives used on the DPRK changed from "bad" to "dangerous" in 2017, then to "good" and "great" in the past two months.

"China" is the top word used in Trump's tweets which mention the DPRK. It has been mentioned 31 times, way more than the U.S. (13 times) and other relevant countries and organizations including South Korea (nine times), Russia (six times), United Nations (five times) and Japan (five times). 

Also, Chinese President Xi Jinping was mentioned eight times, exceeding other world leaders like Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (four times) and South Korean President Moon Jae-in (three times). The DPRK leader Kim Jong Un was mentioned most at 10 times.

As the first figure shows, Trump's emotions have changed over time when talking about the DPRK. He has used negative adjectives such as "bad," "rogue," "hostile" and "dangerous," and also positive adjectives like "great," "productive" and "good." When talking about President Xi, Trump used all positive adjectives such as "great," "excellent," "good" and "productive." 

Reactions to Trump's tweets mentioning DPRK

Most commented item:

Most retweeted item:

Most liked item: