Donald Trump’s speech at the United Nation’s last week got the attention, but his Executive Order a couple days later authorizing the US Treasury Department to target just about anyone, anywhere doing business with North Korea is more important.
(That is, once one gets over the surprise that Treasury couldn’t already do this.)
This is a welcome improvement on the sieve-like sanctions against North Korea and near non-existent effort against the many countries that do business with the Kim regime.
China, North Korea’s principal backer, needs to worry about forceful ‘secondary’ sanctions in addition to penalties threatened under the Section 301 inquiry into improper Chinese trade practices recently authorized by Trump.
The US Government has all the legal tools it needs to impose real sanctions on the Kim regime – and its aiders and abettors – and appears ready to use them.
That a Queens, New York, real estate developer accomplished this overdue shift in US policy is less surprising than it seems. Trump may not have a degree in international relations but he’s getting good advice and also appears to have the right instincts.
These instincts were presumably honed by experience – succeeding beyond his peers in a construction industry plagued by mafia influence, organized labor unions, and Democratic party controlled local governments in the pocket of the labor unions.
In the process, Trump developed precisely the skills needed to deal with similar mentalities found in North Korea and China – not exactly a refined crowd.
The sound of a US president laying out America’s position in unvarnished, declarative language at the United Nations horrified some listeners. And the “just learn to live with a nuclear North Korea” or “negotiate it out” crowd is predictably resurfacing.
Obama era officials can be heard on the news and the talk shows clucking about needing to tone down the language since Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim are sounding like schoolyard bullies. Though after eight years of abject failure at deterrence, with a hydrogen weapon and ICBM’s almost in Kim’s grasp, these people simply have no credibility.
If North Korea gets where it intends to go, expect Japan to go nuclear, and maybe South Korea, too.
If North Korea gets where it intends to go, expect Japan to go nuclear, and maybe South Korea, too.
The Kim regime will step up hectoring against South Korea and the US in hopes of splitting the US-South Korea alliance. At which point, a military push to “reunify” the peninsula starts to look feasible to Kim Jong-un – no matter how the American foreign policy class thinks he should see it.
Try staying out of that conflict if you’re the US President.
War must be the last option. But if serious sanctions aren’t tried (and they never have been) that’s where we will likely end up, even if Kim is given everything he wants in the short term – money, food, military training freezes, and other assurances.
Now is not the time to slacken the pressure on the North Korean regime, China, and others, but instead to raise it.
Friendly foreign governments should eject North Korean ambassadors (as Mexico has done), close down North Korean business operations (legal and illicit), and block luxury goods shipments to the Kim regime on various pretexts – not least running afoul of the Americans if common decency won’t do.
Then, other governments should start loading up planes with North Korean laborers to be sent home.
Then, other governments should start loading up planes with North Korean laborers to be sent home.
Booting North Korea out of the United Nations is a long shot, but also worth a try.
The US Foreign Service feels unloved under every administration, but even more so since Rex Tillerson took over as Secretary of State. The Foreign Service now has the opportunity to make itself useful.
It falls to the US diplomatic corps to visit the decision makers in foreign capitals, and in a polite and courteous way explain that these actions need to be done, say, before the end of the month.
The idea is to create a cascading series of very visible events, including North Korean airports flooded with returning workers from all over the globe, that is difficult to hide from the masses.
China won’t help voluntarily, but for the first time it has something to worry about. Present it with a choice between doing business with North Korea or with the United States and the men in Zhongnanhai can do the cost benefit analysis.
And there’s no need to go easy on China in exchange for help reining in North Korea. It has never helped, and anyway it repeatedly says it has no influence over the Kim regime.
Few people outside the American foreign policy commentariat believe this, but let’s apply secondary sanctions on China and find out.
After a quarter of century of failure (admittedly a bipartisan achievement), it’s time for a different approach. It’s just ironic that Trump – who as far is as known did not spend his junior year abroad – is the one to finally get American policy towards North Korea pointed in the right direction.
The real estate guy is a dotard.
Sanctions weaken a country but they cannot destroy a country. Now smuggling activities will thrive along the Chinese-Korean border as well as along the Russian-Korean border. Do the Chinese or the Russian governments have the means or the will the control the hundreds of Kms of the border? Maybe the dotard real estate guy will propose to build a wall along the border and will ask the North Koreans to pay for the wall! But even then, tunnels may be drilled below the river bed of the rivers separating these countries.
Anyone that suggests sanctions will work is on the wrong end of history..or an American lol..to suggest Trump has a clear policy is another bizarre idea..kinda surprised that the author has worked as a Diplomat but never suggests maybe diplomacy might work…or maybe the Russia/China freeze freeze proposal might work..The problem is the US doesn’t negotiate in good faith..look at the many broken deals with Russia and of course Iran..All bark and no bite..can only attack countries that can’t fight back..End of the Empire can’t come soon enough but unfortuantely it will be a slow painful process for the world.
I’m neither knowledgeable about nor interested in the history of conflicts involving the Kurds, but I feel compelled to challenge two claims:
Quote – The White House warned, Sept. 15 that “the referendum is distracting from efforts to defeat [the Islamic State] and stabilize the liberated areas.”
No. The US is behind ISIS. We have seen plenty of direct and indirect evidence before. Incidentally, Russia released some photos yesterday showing US special ops at ISIS positions in Syria. For details see:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-24/russia-releases-photos-showing-us-special-ops-isis-positions-syria
Quote – The United States brawled into the region in 2003 in order to create a stable and democratic Iraq …
Half a million Iraqi children had died due to US / NATO sanctions before 2003. A stable and democratic Iraq? The mere inclusion of the term would suffice to decimate the credibilty of the writer!! Iraq was invaded under false pretenses (WMD). The US Establishment doesn’t give a damn about human lives, much less democracy. How many democratically elected leaders have been killed or overthrown by the US in the past 50 years?!
Heads are exploding to even consider that President Trump is correct about, well, anything! The policy is long overdue against a militaristic dictatorship which considers execution by anti-aircraft ordinance perfectly acceptable
MerriAnn McLain, the Americans are so stupid that they will take at face value everything that CNN and Fox News tell them – Saddam Hussein forcefully took out babies from incubators, Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, etc. 95% of the Americans do not know where NK is situated, yet they believe the story of execution by anti-aircraft artillery. They even elect a dotard as their president.
This Grant Newsom person is a complete ass. What North Korea wants and
should have is an arbitrated end of the war, the removal of 40,000 American
troops from South Korea (South Korea wants that as well), and the beginning
of reuification discussions between the north and south. Thr United States is
failing a mile a minute with its proposterously stupid aggressive foreign policy.
It’s time to take care of what’s happening here at home.
Total boycott might be the only alternative to war. Of course, it might also trigger war.
The Treasury didn’t "already do this" because the stupid Americans and their criminally negligent officials allowed a communist Quisling pretender, Barack Hussein Obama, to exercise unlawfully the powers of the Office of President.
Wow Joe! Your true colors are flourishing!..
If N. Korea does not stop f*****g around with nuclear weapons sufficient stress and discomfort should be caused to the "regime" and sufficient unrest among the people. When N. Korean refugees start pouring into Beijing the Chinese communist party will regret breeding vipers.
Spot-on Grant…seems you are one of the few that understands the bigger picture of the North Korean "issue". Banking is key to getting KJU to make the first mistake justifying the :fire & fury" which will surely be unleashed.
Maybe he can also deal with illicit Delaware offshore companies, haha…
sanctions didn’t work against japan in ww2 either. and by the time, they surrendered millions of lives were lost on both sides…. so how is the sanctions thingy suppose to work again….
I have to give the COWARD——–Obama credit——-his administration ignored North Korea and the little fat boy———if President Donald J. Trump is smart and savy he will follow Obama’s policy. The Chinese leadership loved the little fat boy murdering his half brother because China knows once the Western Mainstream media jumps on a story it lives for a long time. A poor, improvished country getting all this coverage, the little fat boy’s grandfather his rolling over in his grave with joy———–meanwhile the Middle Kingdom marches forward!!