Vice President Kamala Harris will on Thursday visit the demilitarized zone (DMZ) dividing the Korean peninsula as fears build of a new North Korean nuclear test. The visit, which was confirmed by Seoul and Washington officials Tuesday, is designed to demonstrate U.S. solidarity with South Korea over national security. Harris’ trip will be the first to the Korean DMZ by a senior official in the Biden administration. It will take place just days after Kim Jong Un fired a ballistic missile toward the sea, the latest in a series of worrying signs that the despot’s regime is on the brink of conducting its first nuclear weapon test since 2017. The visit will do nothing to assuage tensions which have been steadily rising between the U.S. and North Korea in recent months, with Kim describing the presence of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier in the region for exercises this week as an “extremely dangerous act” that could take the peninsula to the edge of conflict.