North Korea slammed U.S. President Donald Trump‘s first National Security Strategy on Friday calling it a “criminal document,” hours before a U.N. vote on a U.S.-drafted resolution ramping up sanctions on the hermit state.
The security report is a litany of U.S. grievances, outlining the superpower’s approach to the world with biting language framing Beijing and Moscow as global competitors.
The strategy unveiled Monday is “a typical outcome of the Yankee-style arrogance, seeking total subordination of the whole world to the interests of the U.S.”, North Korean state news agency KCNA quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying.
“It is also a criminal document which clearly reflects the gangster-like nature of Trump who likes to create trouble,” the spokesman added.
China and Russia have also decried the 68-page report, which pilloried both nations as “revisionist powers” bent on rolling back American interests.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday the strategy displayed a “Cold War mentality,” while the Kremlin denounced its “imperialist character.”
The U.N. Security Council voted Friday in favor of new punitive measures restricting oil supplies to the North.
The sanctions, in response to North Korea’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on November 28, were the third raft of measures imposed on the pariah state this year.
The vote came as the United States and North Korea are showing no signs they are willing to engage in talks to end the crisis on the Korean peninsula.
Mr. Trump has threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it attacks the United States while the North insists the world must now accept that it is a nuclear power.