WASHINGTON — Just over a week ago, the White House declared that ordering an American aircraft carrier into the Sea of Japan would send a powerful deterrent signal to North Korea and give President Trump more options in responding to the North’s provocative behavior. “We’re sending an armada,” Mr. Trump said to Fox News last Tuesday afternoon.
The problem was that the carrier, the Carl Vinson, and the three other warships in its strike force were that very moment sailing in the opposite direction, to take part in joint exercises with the Australian Navy in the Indian Ocean, 3,500 miles southwest of the Korean Peninsula.–New York Times, April 18
Somewhere out in the Pacific
There’s a beautiful naval fleet
With battleships that are terrific
And I command it with a tweet.
I’m sending it to North Korea,
The people there are very bad.
Now it’s in, like, Tanzania
Or Singapore or Trinidad.
Anyway, it’s coming from there.
It will show amazing force!
After that, it’s going somewhere!
America will stay the course!
I hope they’re watching in Damascus
My threats are existential.
If they doubt us, they can ask us:
I’m acting presidential!
I draw no red lines in the sand
I draw them in the water.
Here and now I take my stand,
But first check with my daughter.
I’m sending out a big armada
I push buttons, something happens!
The whole world is my enchilada,
I’m sticking it with map pins.
And if I don’t know where to go
And if I seem to have no clue
The beauty is if I don’t know
Then neither, of course, do you.