White House warns North Korea might be making a 'fatal mistake'

A senior White House official warned Wednesday that North Korea would be making a huge error if it views U.S. restraint toward the regime as weakness, and said the Trump administration would hold firm against North Korea's efforts to blackmail the U.S. and its allies by threatening the use of nuclear weapons.

Speaking aboard Air Force on the way to Beijing, the official said North Korea's weapons are "designed to blackmail us into lifting sanctions, and into ultimately dissolving the alliance, getting American troops off of the peninsula, and into eventually reunifying the South and the North, under the North Korean regime."

But the official said Trump is telling all of Asia, "that is never going to happen under our watch." The official added that if North Korea is misinterpreting U.S. restraint, "that would be a fatal mistake."

The official said for that reason, North Korea's push for nuclear weapons is actually putting the regime in more danger, not less.

"These weapons are putting the North Korean regime in greater danger; they are not making it safer," the official said.