Nancy Pelosi may be spending her time worrying about whether or not Donald Trump will launch a nuke at somebody, but she might wish to turn her attention to a far more pressing threat. Earlier this week, week, we looked at North Korean tyrant Kim Jong-un’s opening remarks to the Workers’ Party Congress in Pyongyang. In that speech, Kim admitted that his five-year plan from 2016 for North Korea’s economic revival had failed, promising to deliver a new agenda to address those shortcomings. While not initially offering any details, Kim came back the following night to unveil one step in the process. He’s planning to go back to producing nuclear weapons and missiles to carry them. I’m sure that will put a little pep in their economy, eh?

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un threatened to expand his nuclear arsenal and develop more sophisticated atomic weapons systems, saying the fate of relations with the United States depends on whether it abandons its hostile policy.

Kim’s comments made Friday during a key ruling party meeting was seen as an effort to apply pressure on the incoming government of President-elect Joe Biden, who is to take office later this month.

The Korean Central News Agency said Saturday that Kim says “key to establishing new relations between (North Korea) and the United States is whether the United States withdraws its hostile policy” on North Korea.

One of the many reasons that North Korea’s economy is in the tank is that their Dear Leader keeps flushing a lot of the money they manage to get their hands on into advancing his nuclear weapons program instead of taking care of other pesky details such as making sure his people aren’t starving. The international sanctions that have added to the country’s problems are based almost entirely on Kim’s development of tactical weapons. So while addressing the need to rescue his economy, he pledges to do the one thing that ensures the sanctions won’t be lifted and wastes even more money? This guy is truly a genius.

Of course, threatening to “restart” work on his nuclear weapons program isn’t really that much of a threat because it’s been shown that he never really stopped in the first place, despite promising President Trump that he would. Intelligence sources have confirmed continued activity at some of their weapons facilities over the past two years, and the one site he allegedly destroyed in dramatic fashion has similarly shown signs that work continues there. The only thing that would really change as a result of this threatened policy shift is they would go back to openly testing the weapons.

So what does Joe Biden plan to do? Under Donald Trump, we saw a break from North Korea firing missiles and testing nukes for a couple of years. That effort ultimately failed since Kim wouldn’t do anything the west wants until all of the sanctions on him were dropped. Will a President Biden want to be the person with his hand on the tiller when all of that dangerous activity resumes?

More to the point, will Uncle Joe even make the effort? Donald Trump was the first president to even open the door to discussions with Kim Jong-un. It was something that the Democrats criticized him for during the 2016 election when he suggested he might meet with Kim. Now, with Trump on the way out, it appears that the “old Kim” is back on stage. Biden has a choice of leaving the sanctions in place and watching more nuclear detonations on the Korean peninsula or caving in and offering to drop some sanctions in exchange for future concessions from Kim. Given the diminutive dictator’s history, he would most likely take whatever was offered and then renege on the deal later. It’s how his family has always operated.