U.S. President Joe Biden will make clear during his trip to Japan and South Korea later this month the "ironclad" U.S. commitment to defending allies including through nuclear deterrence, amid the threat from North Korea, the White House said Thursday.
The commitment to providing so-called extended deterrence to the two Asian allies will be reaffirmed in light of "North Korea's continued destabilizing actions in the region, including the test-launch of multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles," press secretary Jen Psaki said during a news briefing.
In March, North Korea conducted its first launch of an ICBM since November 2017, marking an end to a self-imposed moratorium on test-firing such missiles that had stretched back to April 2018. It had also tested an ICBM system in prior missile tests.