North Korea: Trump's 'America first' policy akin to 'Nazism'

North Korea’s state media on Tuesday published a report describing President Trump’s “America First” policy akin to “Nazism in the 21st century.”

The Korean Central News Agency said Trump’s policy is the “American version of Nazism far surpassing the fascism in the last century in its ferocious, brutal and chauvinistic nature.”

The article goes on to call the sanctions it faces “an unethical and inhumane act, far exceeding the degree of Hitler’s blockade of Leningrad,” and said Trump’s decision to pull out of the 2015 Paris climate accord a violation that surpasses the horror of Nazi concentration camps.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the report comes ahead of the visit by South Korean President moon Jae-in to the White House this week.

A few months ago, Trump said it would be “an honor” to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. But tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have escalated dramatically in the past few weeks, peaking with the death of American Otto Warmbier.
Trump declared North Korea's treatment of Warmbier "a total disgrace," and called the North Korean government is "a brutal regime."

The U.S. will "be able to handle it," Trump added.

The U.S. and others have long turned to economic sanctions as a form of punishment, and the State Department confirmed that a travel ban is being considered. South Korean officials announced Tuesday that the U.S. flew two supersonic bomber jets over the Korean peninsula today in what was described as a “show of force” responding to Warmbier’s death.

Robert Carlin, a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Center for international Security and Cooperation, wrote on the 38 North blog: “The drift over the past few months has been increasingly albeit cautiously negative, in part as a reaction to what the North sees as negative developments in the US approach. Nevertheless, it is still early in the Trump administration for Pyongyang to have closed and bolted the door to engagement.”