US VP Pence assures Japan: America is with you '100 percent'

Pence on Monday had traveled to the tense zone dividing the two Koreas, where he warned North Korea's leaders that after years of testing the US and South Korea with its nuclear ambitions, "the era of strategic patience is over".

Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday that the United States government will review the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed in 2012 with South Korea, a media report said.

While wrapping up the first leg of his tour in South Korea, Pence said that the United States was rethinking most of its trade deals in order to fall more in line with Trump's "America First" campaign promises.

Kim said the Trump administration is "trumpeting about "peace by strength" by deploying "one strategic striking means after another in South Korea". "In the past two weeks, the world witnessed the strength and resolve of our new president in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan", Pence said.

It's a role Pence played in Europe in February: letting allies and partners know that the basic tenets of USA foreign policy remain intact, even inside the White House. Pyongyang will press forward building a robust military arsenal, and Washington and its allies will continue to negate such a build-up with counter measures: missile defense systems like THAAD; offensive weapons like stealth fighters and bombers; the rotating in of "armadas;" and, perhaps eventually, tactical nuclear weapons transferred back to South Korea from the U.S.

Today, though, the vice foreign minister told the BBC that his government will be testing missiles weekly, and he warned of a preemptive nuclear strike by the North if the US takes military action. But China furiously objects to its deployment, saying it could spy on its own defence installations, and has taken apparent retaliatory action against South Korean firms operating in its country.

"We should stay on our toes to protect our territory and people's lives", Hwang said.

More directly on North Korea, the president returned to a theme of placing much onus on China for reining in the North.

Recently, Pyongyang has been alarmed by the USA deployment of the THAAD missile system in South Korea in early March.

But senior North Korean officials remained defiant.

The comments came a day after North Korea tried and failed to launch a missile from its submarine base at Sinpo.

A North Korean defector said Kim Jong Un plans to kidnap Americans if tensions with the US continue to escalate.

North Korea celebrated its most significant holiday, the Day of the Sun, last week. He says any use of nuclear weapons by North Korea will be met with "an overwhelming and effective response".

"We do not accept the reckless nuclear missile actions of Pyongyang that breach United Nations resolutions, but that does not mean that you can break worldwide law", he said.

"I think that the president's tweet said clearly to do so at this time would not be prudent", the White House spokesperson said, adding that labeling China as a currency manipulator now would not be very productive in addressing the Korean Peninsula situation.

According to Gideon Rachman, the chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times, North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has embraced militarism, isolationism and paranoia.

The official made a passing swipe at Trump and his administration, referring to him not as the President but as a "businessman". But experts agree that China also wants to prevent North Korea from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power - and certainly wants to prevent a war on their southern border that could send millions of refugees flooding into China and potentially risk bringing a United States military presence to China's borders.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence gives a speech to members of the American Chamber of Commerce at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, April 18, 2017.

The new forum for trade talks was launched by Trump and Abe during the Japanese leader's visit to the U.S.in February.