On 16 May, President Trump was asked whether his summit with North Korea would still take place after the communist regime had threatened to call it off. ‘We haven't seen anything, we haven't heard anything’, Trump said. When asked if Kim was bluffing when he threatened to cancel the planned summit on 12 June, he replied, ‘We'll see what happens’. Pyongyang’s statement blamed the annual military drills between the US and South Korea that had started two days earlier, adding: ‘The USA must carefully contemplate the fate of the planned summit amid the provocative military ruckus that it is causing. We will keenly monitor how the authorities react.’ China has urged North Korea to go forward with the summit. Its foreign ministry says the two countries should make sure that the meeting runs as planned and yields ‘substantial outcomes’.