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		</div><p>President Donald Trump has declared that the US nuclear arsenal is &#8220;far stronger and more powerful than ever before&#8221;.</p>
<p>The President’s top diplomat was working to calm the North Korea crisis and insisting there was not &#8220;any imminent threat&#8221;.</p>
<p>In a series of early-morning tweets, President Trump reaffirmed his threat from a day earlier by reposting video of him warning that Pyongyang would be &#8220;met with fire and fury like the world has never seen&#8221; if it made more threats to the US.</p>
<p>Then he said that his first order as president had been to &#8220;renovate and modernise&#8221; the US nuclear arsenal.</p>
<p>In December, before being sworn into office, President Trump called for the United States to &#8220;greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability&#8221; until the rest of the world &#8220;comes to its senses&#8221; regarding nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>After his inauguration, he ordered a review of the nation&#8217;s nuclear posture to ensure that US capabilities were modern and robust, but the White House has not detailed any findings from that evaluation.</p>
<p>Efforts to modernise the nation&#8217;s ageing nuclear stockpiles pre-date Mr Trump&#8217;s presidency.</p>
<p>In 2016, then-defence secretary Ash Carter said the Pentagon planned to spend 108bn US dollars over five years to sustain and improve its nuclear force.</p>
<p>President Trump tweeted on Wednesday: <i>&#8220;Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Only hours before, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm and said Americans should have &#8220;no concerns&#8221; despite the exchange of threats between the president and North Korea.</p>
<p>Aboard his plane as he flew home from Asia, Mr Tillerson insisted the developments did not suggest the US was moving closer to a military option to dealing with the crisis.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;Americans should sleep well at night,&#8221;</i> Mr Tillerson said.</p>
<p>He added: <i>&#8220;Nothing that I have seen and nothing that I know of would indicate that the situation has dramatically changed in the last 24 hours.&#8221;</i></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">My first order as President was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before&#8230;.</p>
<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/895252459152711680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The mixed messages from Mr Tillerson and President Trump put the onus on the North Koreans to decide how to interpret the latest missives from the US.</p>
<p>In more tranquil terms than President Trump, Mr Tillerson sought to explain the thinking behind Mr Trump&#8217;s warning.</p>
<p>He said the president was trying to send a strong and clear message to North Korea&#8217;s leader so that there wouldn&#8217;t be &#8220;any miscalculation&#8221;.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;What the president is doing is sending a strong message to North Korea in language that Kim Jong Un can understand, because he doesn&#8217;t seem to understand diplomatic language,&#8221;</i> Mr Tillerson said.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime on the US unquestionable ability to defend itself.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>He said the US &#8220;will defend itself and its allies&#8221;.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">&#8230;Hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!</p>
<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/895254168570605568?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 9, 2017</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The comments put Mr Tillerson once again in the role of translating the president&#8217;s aggressive rhetoric into more diplomatic terms, and of working to minimise the chances of public panic.</p>
<p>In fact, Mr Tillerson argued that North Korea&#8217;s escalating threats indicated it was feeling the pressure from a successful US strategy.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson spoke to reporters as he returned from Malaysia to Washington, stopping along the way in Guam.</p>
<p>Hours earlier, North Korea&#8217;s army had said in a statement it was exploring plans for attacking the tiny US territory, which houses US military bases and is a common refuelling stop for US government aircraft traversing the Pacific Ocean.</p>
<p>Mr Tillerson said he never considered re-routing his trip from Malaysia so as to avoid stopping in Guam.</p>
<p>Though he insisted there was no imminent threat, he noted that even if there were, &#8220;the North Korean missile capability can point in many directions, so Guam is not the only place that would be under threat&#8221;.</p>
<p>Though it is extremely unlikely the North would risk annihilation by pre-emptively attacking American citizens, the escalating rhetoric has heightened concern that a miscalculation could spiral out of control and lead to military conflict &#8211; a concern especially acute in Guam, residents of the territory said.</p>
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