North Korea is arguably the most isolationist nation on Earth, abiding by its quasi-theocratic “juche” version of totalitarianism and shutting itself off from the entire world – with the occasional exception of China, that is. They are all about self-reliance, oppression, censorship, and military provocation.

That’s why it’s pretty strange when you realize that they signed up to the Paris agreement ages ago. Not only that, but its government has even ratified it, which means its actively going along with its goals.

Now, in what is easily one of the strangest stories of 2017, they’re taking the piss out of America for pulling out of it. North Korea has, for the first time in eons, the moral high ground.

Responding to the Rose Garden announcement, an unnamed North Korean official from their Foreign Ministry released a statement declaring the President’s decision to be “the height of egotism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being at the cost of the entire planet.”

“Whoever chooses to blindly follow the Trump administration overpowered by its bravado should be fully aware that the judgment of history shall take them all as one,” they added.

As has been widely reported in the last few days, only Nicaragua and Syria have failed to sign the accords, the former because they didn’t think it went far enough and the latter because they are kind of busy with a near-apocalyptic civil war. Unless something major changes in the next few years, it looks like America will join that ignoble club of two too.

A central tenet of North Korean propaganda is that America is their number one enemy, the devil incarnate, the scum of the Earth – so it’s entirely unsurprising when a hilariously belligerent television broadcast threatens the Land of the Free with a “super-mighty preemptive strike”. We’re sure the President today would respond to that with a “bigly rocket launch”.

Still, it is admittedly amusing that the communist state is ribbing the US over its withdrawal from the Paris agreement in similarly bellicose terms.

The North Korean regime was briefly a fan of Trump during the election campaign, presumably because Clinton was taking a far harder line on the hermit kingdom. It recent months, however, they have since called him, among other things, “ignorant”. It’s hard to disagree with this sentiment.

In any case, the secretive state has a very low carbon footprint because it barely has any industries, agriculture, or even transportation to speak of, so their participation in the Paris accords won’t make a major difference. Still – good for them, we suppose.

[H/T: Washington Post]