According to Night Watch a Pentagon Intelligence report through KGS (Kforce Government Solutions) that since just before 26 July 2016 the United States government put an embargo on all North Korean funds within the United States for penalties over lack of humanitarian considerations, which was including those finances of Kim Jung Un. This caused him to begin a military buildup as a form of intimidation. The Pentagon released their comments in revealing that North Korea would not declare war as a matter of policy, and their threats are their way to encourage outside influences to declare war upon them. Thus the NKPA build-up or even attack would leave open the argument that the foe was perpetrator and North Korea the victim.
The idea that President Trump was elected as a brazen leader makes Kim Jung Un's strategy a viable one that Trump seems to be playing into. The United States government defenses certainly don't need to counter-threat in order to prove our military superiority, but our president seems compelled to answer verbally in an unnecessary show of force, because it is rather well known we are the superior military force in this saber-rattling stage of Kim Jung Un outrage. President Trump seems to think he can negotiate out of the North Korean threat. The reason we are in this tit-for-tat show of force in the first place is over the financial embargo based on North Korea's humanitarian penalties. There has been no mention by the Trump administration of any reference to the embargo or the reasons for this embargo. It therefore seems likely that our president wants to "use some of those nuclear warheads we have stockpiled," as he stated during his campaign. And, his negotiations have been with the leadership of China and Russia to ensure moot alliances with North Korea. What's to negotiate with North Korea? Hiroshima was a strategic target where Japan had a ball-bearing factory, and we certainly know where the PRNK missiles are being built. New intelligence turns up where their missile engines are coming from and that takes money, so how effective is the US financial embargo?
In the final analysis, what does our president Trump have with which to negotiate? Diplomatic negotiations with China and Russia will be public, and arguments in US Congress will not be any manner of secret.