President Trump’s security advisers have proposed putting US nuclear weapons in South Korea or assassinating Kim Jong-un as possible responses to North Korea’s nuclear programme, according to reports.
The National Security Council (NSC) presented options to Mr Trump ahead of his meeting with President Xi of China this week, NBC News reported. Most controversial among them was the suggestion of deploying nuclear weapons overseas for the first time since the Cold War.
A fast-tracked review of the United States’ policy on North Korea was said to have been ordered by Mr Trump in February, coinciding with Pyongyang firing two new ballistic missiles towards Japan. The options tabled, many of them deeply provocative, are understood to have been prepared in case diplomacy with China is ineffective.