China's president delivered a direct message to President Trump: Ease up on the North Korea rhetoric. In a phone call with Trump Friday night, Xi Jinping said he wanted both sides to avoid "words and actions" that would make the situation worse, per the BBC, citing Chinese media. The White House statement on the call said the two leaders agreed that North Korea must stop its "provocative and escalatory behavior," though it didn't mention Xi's plea to Trump as well. The call came after Trump made a series of aggressive statements directed at Pyongyang on Friday, the most recent one saying that the North would "truly regret" any missile launches toward Guam. The North, meanwhile, ramped up its own rhetoric on Saturday with a boast that 3.5 million people have volunteered to join the military to fight the US, reports the Washington Post.
“All the people are rising up across the country to retaliate against the US thousands of times,” said a newspaper. Meanwhile, China isn't the only nation worried. Japan installed missile interceptors, South Korea is speeding up the process needed to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile-defense system, and Germany's Angela Merkel voiced concern after one of Trump's tweets, saying, “I consider an escalation of rhetoric the wrong answer," per the Guardian. Despite his aggressive language, Trump also has spoken of a non-military outcome. "Hopefully, it will all work out," he said Friday. "Nobody loves a peaceful solution better than President Trump, that I can tell you." (More North Korea stories.)
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