Kim Jong Un has threatened to deliver a “telling blow” against the U.S. if it continues to impose sanctions on North Korea. The leader's statement was a return to the more aggressive language he used to use before he and Donald Trump befriended each other at their two meetings. In his first public comments stating North Korea’s position on the second U.S.-North Korea summit that collapsed without any agreement in February, Kim said he wants to create a self-supporting economy “so as to deal a telling blow to the hostile forces who go with bloodshot eyes miscalculating that sanctions can bring [North Korea] to its knees.” Shin Beom-chul from the Asian Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul interpreted the comments for Reuters, explaining: “He’s saying North Korea would take an independent course unless the U.S. offered to lift sanctions. You maintain sanctions, you’re a hostile force; if you ease sanctions, you’re not.”