Trump steps up sanctions on N. Korea

Aim is to further curb trade; Kim labels him ‘deranged’

“We do not desire the collapse of North Korea,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday in his address to the U.N. General Assembly. He called on world leaders to “peacefully solve” the North Korea nuclear threat.
“We do not desire the collapse of North Korea,” South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Thursday in his address to the U.N. General Assembly. He called on world leaders to “peacefully solve” the North Korea nuclear threat.

President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered a widening of U.S. sanctions on North Korea to further constrict its trade with the outside world, as he presented a united front with South Korea and Japan and sought to forge a common strategy for confronting the isolated, nuclear-armed state.

A new executive order that Trump announced would target additional North Korean entities and suggested that he was still committed to economic pressure for now, rather than military action, despite his vow to "totally destroy North Korea" if the United States were forced to defend itself or its allies.

"North Korea's nuclear program is a grave threat to peace and security in our world, and it is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal, rogue regime," he said as he hosted the leaders of South Korea and Japan for lunch in New York. "The brutal North Korean regime does not respect its own citizens or the sovereignty of other nations."

Later, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a rare statement early today, branding Trump as "deranged" and warning that he will "pay dearly" for his threat to "totally destroy" the North if it attacks.

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Such a countermeasure could include the detonation of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific, the South Korean Yonhap news agency reported, citing North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, who is in New York this week for the U.N. General Assembly.

Ri told reporters in New York the response "could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific," Yonhap reported.

Trump said Thursday that his new order would enhance the Treasury Department's authority to target individuals or businesses that conduct significant trade in goods, services or technology with North Korea. It will place new limits on textile, fishing, information technology and manufacturing industries and, to prevent sanctions evasion, will include measures aimed at North Korean shipping and trade networks, he said.

North Korea has raised the temperature in the region by testing a nuclear bomb and intercontinental ballistic missiles in recent weeks. But it has withstood an array of U.S. and international sanctions for years, and it remains unclear whether the latest round will have any greater impact. Last week, the U.N. Security Council approved a U.S.-drafted resolution tightening limits on North Korean trade, although it did not go as far as the Trump administration wanted.

CHINA'S ROLE

The new U.S. sanctions came as Trump hosted President Moon Jae-in of South Korea and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan for a show of solidarity on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. But another key player in the North Korea issue, President Xi Jinping of China, skipped this year's U.N. session.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warned earlier this month that the U.S. may impose additional sanctions on China to further squeeze Kim's regime.

Still, Trump spent an hour on the telephone with Xi earlier in the week, and on Thursday he hailed what he called a "very bold move" by China's central bank to limit interactions with North Korea. "That was a somewhat unexpected move, and we appreciate it," Trump said.

China is North Korea's chief ally and economic lifeline. About 90 percent of North Korean economic activity involves China, and Chinese entities are the main avenue for North Korea's very limited financial transactions in the global economy. China is also suspected of turning a blind eye to some of the smuggling and sanctions-busting operations that have allowed Pyongyang to rapidly develop sophisticated long-range missiles despite international prohibitions on parts and technology.

"We continue to call on all responsible nations to enforce and implement sanctions," Trump said.

He added that the order will give Mnuchin the "discretion to target any foreign bank knowingly facilitating specific transactions tied to trade with North Korea."

A White House fact sheet said that under the executive order, airplanes or ships that have visited North Korea will be banned for 180 days from visiting the United States, a move meant to crack down on illicit trade.

"This significantly expands Treasury's authority to target those who enable this regime ... wherever they are located," Mnuchin said.

U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the goal is to "cut the revenue so they could do less of their reckless behavior."

"It doesn't mean that it will necessarily change Kim's attitude," Haley said.

Abe, who has been largely aligned with Trump's approach, offered words of support Thursday.

"Dialogue for the sake of dialogue will not produce anything," Abe said. "The key at this moment is to exercise and apply pressure against North Korea in a robust manner. And together with Donald, we've been successfully demonstrating our strong will to exercise pressure against North Korea."

Moon lately has argued for more engagement and opposed any military action on the Korean Peninsula. Trump has derided this approach, calling it "appeasement" and declaring that "talking is not the answer."

No mention was made of that Thursday, however, as the president said the United States and South Korea were "making a lot of progress" together and Moon embraced Trump's bellicose speech Tuesday to the General Assembly.

"North Korea has continued to make provocations, and this is extremely deplorable, and this has angered both me and our people," Moon said when he met with Trump before their lunch. "But the United States has responded firmly and in a very good way."

Yet earlier in the day, Moon used his own address to the General Assembly to urge world leaders to "peacefully solve the North Korea nuclear issue," step up diplomatic pressure and do everything possible to prevent war on the Korean Peninsula.

Moon also sought to reassure the North about the South's ambitions.

"We do not desire the collapse of North Korea," he said. "We will not seek unification by absorption or artificial means. If North Korea makes a decision even now to stand on the right side of history, we are ready to assist North Korea together with the international community."

HUMANITARIAN AID

Also Thursday, South Korea's Unification Ministry announced the decision to resume humanitarian aid to North Korea to help children and pregnant women, but it didn't determine when to provide the $8 million worth of assistance during the tensions regarding Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests.

South Korea suspended humanitarian aid to North Korea after the country conducted its fourth nuclear test in January 2016. Moon, a liberal who took office in May, has maintained that the matter of providing humanitarian aid to North Korea should be handled independently from political circumstances.

After a meeting between ministries and civilian experts, the government decided to support programs by the United Nations Children's Fund and the U.N. World Food Program for providing food and medicines to North Korean children and pregnant women, the Unification Ministry said.

The decision came a day after North Korea likened Trump to a "dog barking."

"Back home, we have a saying: The dog barks, but the caravan continues," Ri, the North's foreign minister, told reporters in New York on Wednesday when asked about Trump's Tuesday speech. "If he thought he could scare us with the noise of a dog barking, well, he should be daydreaming."

Trump declared in that speech that "rocket man," as he derisively called the North Korean leader, is on a "suicide mission" by continuing to test and develop weapons systems. The U.S. president said North Korea's "reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life."

"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Trump said Tuesday.

Kim said in his statement, carried today by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, that Trump was "unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country." He described the president as "a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire." He characterized Trump's speech to the world body Tuesday as "mentally deranged behavior."

"I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the DPRK," the statement said, using the initials to refer to the communist country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

South Korea today called Kim's rebuke of Trump a "reckless provocation" that would deepen his country's international isolation and lead to its demise. Baik Tae-hyun, the South's Unification Ministry spokesman, told reporters that North Korea must immediately return to talks on its nuclear disarmament.

Vice President Mike Pence said Trump hoped to use Thursday's meetings with South Korean and Japanese leaders to marshal "the economic and diplomatic power of the region and the wider world to achieve a peaceable outcome."

Still, he said Trump was serious about his threat. "We do not desire a military conflict," Pence said. "But the president has made it very clear, as he did at the U.N. this week, that all options are on the table and we are simply not going to tolerate a rogue regime in Pyongyang obtaining usable nuclear weapons that could be mounted on a ballistic missile and threaten the people of the United States or our allies."

Information for this article was contributed by Peter Baker and Somini Sengupta of The New York Times; by Matthew Pennington, Jonathan Lemire, Darlene Superville and Kim Tong-Hyung of The Associated Press; by David Nakamura and Anne Gearan of The Washington Post; and by Margaret Talev, Nick Wadhams, Toluse Olorunnipa and John Follain of Bloomberg News.

photo

AP/EVAN VUCCI

Japanese President Shinzo Abe greets President Donald Trump at a meeting Thursday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Abe was supportive of Trump’s new sanctions against North Korea.

A Section on 09/22/2017

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