SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s influential sister warned the United States against “causing a stink”, state media reported Tuesday, as top Biden administration officials began a visit to key allies Tokyo and Seoul.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Japan on Monday on their first overseas trip, aimed at rallying military alliances as a bulwark against China and cementing a united front against the nuclear-armed North.

The statement by Kim Yo Jong, a key adviser to her brother, was Pyongyang’s first explicit reference to the new leadership in Washington, more than four months after Joe Biden was elected to replace Donald Trump — although it still did not mention the Democrat by name. The United States and South Korea began joint military exercises last week and Pyongyang’s official news agency carried a statement from her warning the new US administration: “If it wants to sleep in peace for coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step.”

Trump’s unorthodox approach to foreign policy saw him trade insults and threats of war with Kim Jong Un before an extraordinary diplomatic bromance that saw a series of headline-grabbing meetings.