Thursday, September 21, 2017

Trump Challenges North Korea's Kim with Sanctions

By Douglas V. Gibbs
AuthorSpeakerInstructorRadio Host

New sanctions by the Trump administration are being targeted at North Korea for the communist country's continuing pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Pyongyang has launched missiles that are now reaching a technological point that has United States officials believing that the danger has reached a critical crescendo.

The sanctions include the threat of the United States refusing to do business with countries who are still willing to do business with North Korea, and one of the countries in agreement and on board is China.

Kim Jong Un responded angrily, calling President Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard.”  He also verbalized anger about Trump's U.N. speech, calling it “unprecedented rude nonsense.”

“I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech,” Kim said in a statement released by the official Korean Central News Agency, which also published a photo of the North Korean leader sitting at his desk holding a piece of paper.

“I am now thinking hard about what response he could have expected when he allowed such eccentric words to trip off his tongue. Whatever Trump might have expected, he will face results beyond his expectation,” Kim said, saying that he would “tame” Trump “with fire.”

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported the North’s Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said in New York that his country may test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean. "It could be the most powerful detonation of an H-bomb in the Pacific," Ri said. "We have no idea about what actions could be taken as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong Un."

The claim is that North Korea tested a hydrogen bomb on September 3rd.

“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,” Trump said in brief public remarks during a meeting with the leaders of South Korea and Japan to discuss strategy to confront Pyongyang.

He added that the United States continues to seek a “complete denuclearization of North Korea.”

Significantly, Trump also said that Chinese President Xi Jinping had ordered Chinese banks to cease conducting business with North Korean entities. Trump praised Xi, calling the move “very bold” and “somewhat unexpected.”  If China remains faithful to the sanctions, it could be a severe blow to North Korea's already unstable economy, forcing the country to back down if they want to be able to do business again with their communist neighbor.

China is North Korea's chief ally and economic lifeline. About 90% 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.

As for the United Nations punishing North Korea, all U.N. sanctions requires 100% approval of the five permanent members, giving China as a permanent member veto power. China's willingness to punish its fellow communist state signals that the U.N. sanctions may also go into play.

“We don’t want war,” U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters. “At the same time, we're not going to run scared. If for any reason North Korea attacks the United States or our allies, we're going to respond.”

The new aggressive approach is something countries like North Korea have never had to deal with before.

When asked to compare how the U.S. is handling North Korea as opposed to Iran, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson explained that they are very different scenarios.

“While the threat is the same... (the proliferation of nuclear weapons by these dangerous regimes), the issues surrounding North Korea are very different than the issues surrounding Iran,” Tillerson said Wednesday. “Iran is a large nation, 60 million people; North Korea is a smaller nation, the hermit kingdom, living in isolation. Very different set of circumstances that would be the context and also the contours of an agreement with North Korea, many aspects of which don’t apply between the two.”

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

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