President Joe Biden sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a brief message: “Hello. Period “He addressed reporters in Seoul on Sunday before flying to Japan for the second phase of his Asia tour, which has been overshadowed by fears of Pyongyang conducting a nuclear test.

Biden is leaving South Korea after meeting with newly elected President Yoon Suk-yeol for two days and discussing the possibility of boosting cooperative military drills in response to Kim Jong Un’s threats.

Fears that the unpredictable, nuclear-armed North might perform a weapons test while Biden is in the region have hampered his ambition to strengthen US leadership in Asia, but on his penultimate day in Seoul, he told reporters he had a message for Kim: “Hello. Period.”

He said he was “not concerned” about Pyongyang’s possible weapons test, saying: “We are prepared for anything North Korea does.”

Biden met with Hyundai’s chairman early Sunday to celebrate the automaker’s decision to spend $5.5 billion in an electric vehicle plant in the US state of Georgia.

He’ll also meet with US and South Korean troops, a program that, according to a senior White House official, would “highlight the fully integrated character” of the countries’ economic and military cooperation.

Biden has used his trip to urge closer connections between democratic allies, stating during a joint press conference with Yoon that Asia is a critical battleground in the global “fight between democracies and autocracies.”

“We talked in some length about the need for us to make this larger than just the United States, Japan, and Korea, but the entire Pacific and the South Pacific and Indo-Pacific. I think this is an opportunity,” Biden said.

While China is the principal US adversary in this conflict, Biden highlighted the serious threat posed by Russia when he signed a $40 billion aid bill late Saturday to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russian forces.

The bill, which had already been enacted by Congress, was flown to Seoul so that Biden could sign it into law before returning to Washington late next Tuesday.

Biden will meet with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Emperor Naruhito in Japan on Monday before the Quad summit on Tuesday, which will bring together the leaders of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States.

On Monday, Biden will also introduce the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, a major new US push for regional commerce.

– North Korea threat –

Biden and Yoon said in a statement Saturday that “considering the evolving threat” from North Korea, they “agree to initiate discussions to expand the scope and scale of combined military exercises and training on and around the Korean peninsula”.

The possible beefing up of joint US-South Korean military exercises comes in response to North Korea’s blitz of sanctions-busting weapons tests this year.

Joint exercises had been scaled back due to Covid and in order for Biden and Yoon’s predecessors, Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in, to embark on a round of high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful diplomacy with the North.

In contrast to the dovish Moon, Yoon said he and Biden discussed possible “joint drills to prepare for a nuclear attack” and called for more tactical US assets to be deployed to the region.

Any build-up of forces or expansion of US-South Korea joint military exercises would likely enrage Pyongyang, which views the joint drills as rehearsals for invasion.

Meanwhile, Biden and Yoon offered assistance to Pyongyang, which just stated that it is experiencing a Covid-19 outbreak, a rare admission of internal problems.

The two presidents “express worry about the recent Covid-19 outbreak,” according to the joint statement, and “are eager to collaborate with the international community to give assistance” to North Korea.

Despite an unvaccinated populace and rampant starvation, North Korean official media reported that 2.6 million people had been sick with “fever,” with 67 deaths — a fatality rate of just 0.003 percent, they claimed.

While adding that a meeting with Kim would not be off the table if he was “sincere,” Biden hinted at the difficulty of dealing with the unpredictable tyrant.

“We’ve offered vaccines, not only to North Korea but to China as well and we’re prepared to do that immediately,” Biden said at a press conference with Yoon. “We’ve got no response.”