The White House of President Donald Trump said Friday the U.S. will develop an advanced missile defense system to defend better against attacks from countries like North Korea and Iran, source from the Yonhap.
"President Trump will end the defense sequester and submit a new budget to Congress outlining a plan to rebuild our military," the White House said on its website, referring to the automatic cuts in defense spending.
"We will provide our military leaders with the means to plan for our future defense needs," it said. "We will also develop a state-of-the-art missile defense system to protect against missile-based attacks from states like Iran and North Korea."
Trump took the office of office as the 45th president earlier in the day.
His inauguration came after North Korea has sharply ratcheted up tensions, with leader Kim Jong-un saying in his New Year's Day address that the regime has entered the final stage of preparations to test-fire an intercontinental ballistic missile.
It was an apparent threat that the North is close to developing a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the continental U.S., after five underground nuclear blasts and a series of ballistic missile or rocket launches over the past decade.
In response, Trump vowed to stop the North from mastering such ICBM capabilities, saying that the North's development of a nuclear missile capable of striking the U.S. "won't happen," though he didn't elaborate how he would stop it.
Earlier this week, officials said that the South and the U.S. have picked up signs that the North has readied two ICBMs for apparent test-firing, an indication that the threatened test could come earlier than expected.
