They don't want to nuke us but each step of escalation risks accidents.  What happens when we fly another "drill" around North Korea and they fire a missile as promised?  Do we really want to piss off China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, the entire South East Asian Pacific, Germany, France, and Britain all at once?  Using political pressure is probably the best hope we have.  None of these are real happy with our trade policies right now.