During a speech to supporters in Pennsylvania on Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump praised North Korea’s frontier as “one of the strongest borders anywhere in the world,” describing a barrier of “seven walls of wire” electrified with “a million volts,” while claiming the United States has now achieved its “tightest border we’ve ever had.” He linked the remarks to his longstanding attacks on former President Joe Biden’s immigration record and his own vow to “close the fricking border right now.”
Why It Matters
Trump has made border security the defining theme of both his presidencies and political brand, repeatedly arguing that the U.S. had “the strongest and safest border in U.S. history” under his leadership and “the worst border anywhere in the world” under Biden. Those claims have been central to his criticism of his predecessor’s immigration policies, including Truth Social posts where he repeatedly focused on “border chaos” under Biden.
Trump is actively pursuing a renewed diplomatic track with Seoul aimed at reviving talks with Pyongyang, even as U.S. intelligence agencies warn that North Korea is “in its strongest strategic position in decades” and is enhancing its ability to threaten U.S. forces and allies.
His decision to praise the North’s heavily fortified frontier, therefore, comes against the backdrop of rising tensions along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), where satellite imagery and military reporting reviewed by Newsweek show new barriers, mines and other defenses going up on both sides of the Korean border.
What To Know
Speaking to supporters at an event in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Trump claimed that tens of millions of people entered the United States “totally unchecked and unvetted” under Biden, telling the crowd that “25 million people came into our country … mostly across our southern border” and that his administration had “inherited the worst border in the history of the world.”
He contrasted that with his current record, saying the U.S. now has “the strongest border in the history of our country” and “the tightest border we’ve ever had,” adding that “for seven months in a row, we’ve had zero illegal immigrants admitted to the United States.”
On North Korea, Trump said: “We have one of the strongest borders anywhere in the world. There’s one country that has probably has a stronger border. North Korea has a stronger border. North Korea has seven walls of wire. And each of them has a million volts of electricity going through it. So if you get over one, you’re dead the next one. If you get over one, you’re in very bad shape. If you get over two, you’ve set a record. I think we give North Korea the safest border. But ours is pretty safe.”
In June, Newsweek reported that Trump told Fox News, “last month, we had no people coming,” while also asserting that Biden had let in 21 million people and that 11,888 of them “have murdered people.” U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data cited in that report showed that while Border Patrol released zero illegal immigrants into the U.S. in May 2025, agents still encountered 8,725 people crossing the southwest border between ports of entry, a 93 percent drop from the previous year but not “no people coming.”
More broadly, Newsweek’s recent fact-check on the widely quoted claim that 20 million people entered the U.S. illegally under Biden concluded that the number is an exaggeration. Citing new estimates from the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, the report noted that the undocumented population reached about 14 million in 2023, rising from around 11 million and beginning to fall during Trump’s first term as stricter policies were implemented.
On North Korea, Trump’s line Tuesday that “North Korea has a stronger border” and “seven walls of wire” fits within a security environment that has grown more volatile.
Recent satellite images indicate North Korea is constructing new barriers along the DMZ, which already features extensive minefields and other defenses on both sides. Pyongyang has been reinforcing tactical roads, laying mines and clearing land along the frontier as tensions spike.
What People Are Saying
In a recent Newsweek examination of what one analyst called Trump’s “somewhat schizophrenic” immigration agenda, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said: “The tremendous success on U.S. immigration policy – from closing the border to deporting criminal illegal aliens – is all thanks to President Trump’s vision,” adding that the team is “undoing the pro-illegal immigration policies from the Biden Admin” and has “secured the border.”
Former U.S. intelligence official Markus Garlauskas recently told Newsweek that there is: “a real and growing risk of Kim Jong Un initiating a renewed conflict in Korea. I am concerned that just because there has not been major aggression by the North recently, and because Kim appears to have abandoned Korean unification as a goal, too many Americans have become complacent on this risk.”
What Happens Next
Trump’s latest praise of North Korea’s “seven walls of wire” and his insistence that the U.S. is now “pretty safe” at its own frontier underscore how he continues to link his domestic and foreign-policy narratives through the language of borders, casting both the southern U.S. border and Korean DMZ as central tests of his promise to deliver the “strongest” security at home and abroad.
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