Vice President Kamala Harris has wrapped up her four-day trip to Asia with a visit to the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea. Earlier today, Harris spoke after North Korea test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles, and as South Korean officials said the North was preparing its first nuclear weapons test in five years.
Vice President Kamala Harris: “The DPRK has a ballistic missile launch program, apparently, including just yesterday, and are destabilizing the peace and security of this region. Our shared goal, the United States and the Republic of Korea, is a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
Camp Humpreys, south of Seoul, is the largest U.S. overseas military base and one of several American bases in South Korea that together house almost 30,000 troops and materiel. Last year the Biden administration ruled out redeploying so-called tactical nuclear weapons to South Korean soil, though the U.S. military maintains a large arsenal of long-range missiles and naval-based nuclear weapons capable of devastating North Korea.