South Korean media reports said the strike group was due to arrive the same week Pyongyang marks the April 15 anniversary of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s birth, an event where it is likely to flaunt its military might, possibly with its sixth nuclear test or a military parade showcasing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Earlier this month, after yet another missile launch, the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson put out perhaps the tersest statement in American diplomatic history: “North Korea launched yet another intermediate range ballistic missile. Pyongyang has conducted more than 20 missile launches and two nuclear tests over the past year as it seeks to master the technology needed to mount a warhead on a long-range ballistic missile capable of striking the continental United States. Chinese President Xi Jinping today urged Donald Trump to peacefully resolve raging tensions over North Korea’s nuclear programme after the US President warned that Washington would “solve the problem” on its own if Beijing did not rein in its close ally. • US Threatens Further Attacks on Syria - April 11th, 2017
• Trump: North Korea 'Looking for Trouble,' US Will 'Solve the Problem' - April 11th, 2017 WATCH: Rex Tillerson says China agrees North Korea poses certain level of threat

The U.S. is reportedly leaning hard on China to help deal with North Korea, in some fashion, and its diplomacy has taken a decided turn to the hawkish. “I explained to the President of China that a trade deal with the U.S. will be far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem!” Trump wrote on Twitter in reference to his summit last week with Xi, the two leaders’ first face-to-face meeting. We have no further comment.”

The president, for his part, tweeted on Tuesday:

WATCH: White House ‘continues to be concerned’ by North Korea missile tests

The entire thing has the feel of a slow-motion slide into some kind of confrontation, possibly even a war. “The upside is that the United States may be able to denuclearise the North by force … but it will come at a huge cost to the region and to the United States,” Asan Institute for Policy Studies analyst James Kim told AFP. They would not allow this to happen.”

Trump’s Twitter barrage came a day after North Korea blasted the United States for rerouting the USS Carl Vinson-led aircraft carrier strike group to waters off the Korean Peninsula, saying it is “ready to react to any mode of war.”

The state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying that the dispatch of the strike group showed that “the U.S. reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase of its scenario.”

DPRK is the acronym for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
North Korea announces its readiness to declare war on the United States after the country previously stated that they felt threatened as U.S. military forces approach the Korean Peninsula.