Forbes Asia August 2017

10 | FORBES ASIA AUGUST 2017

CRACKDOWN ON NORTH KOREA

UNAVOIDABLE NOW

BY STEVE FORBES, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

“With all thy getting, get understanding”

FACT & COMMENT

THE TERRIBLE DEATH of student Otto

Warmbier at the hands of North Korea

should be the catalyst for a genuine crack-

down on this repugnant regime, for hu-

manitarian and national security reasons.

The Trump administration, thankfully, is

taking the North Korea situation far more

seriously than its predecessors.

When President Trump met with

China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in April, he

pressed the Chinese president to take

meaningful measures to curb North

Korea’s aggressiveness. So far, China hasn’t followed

through successfully.

That’s why there are several steps the U.S. should

take immediately, which would start to inflict serious

economic pain on Pyongyang and put pressure on China

to make good on its own pledges.

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ment strongly warns U.S. citizens not to go to that odious coun-

try, that’s not the same as an outright prohibition. Remember,

every dollar spent in North

Korea by an American goes

directly into the hands of

murderously psychotic dic-

tator Kim Jong-un to finance

his nuclear and terrorist

activities.

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In a misbegot-

ten bout of appeasement

President George W. Bush

removed that designation

in 2008, in the hopes that

doing so would induce

Pyongyang to keep its

promises to throttle back

its nuclear and missile programs. We’ve

seen how successful that Neville Cham-

berlain-like move has been.

Pyongyang has routinely violated

such agreements since Bill Clinton

began this abject appeasement process

in 1994. North Korea’s nuclear pro-

gram proceeds apace, and tests of its

increasingly potent ballistic missiles—

which will soon be able to reach our

shores—are now routine.

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We began doing this in the early 2000s, and the

sanctions were starting to be effective, which is why

Pyongyang signaled the Bush administration that, if we let

up, it was ready to make a deal. We backed off the sanc-

tions, but the North didn’t change its behavior.

Any financial or commercial entity found not to be

in compliance would be barred from doing any busi-

ness with the U.S. That ban would cover noncomplying

companies everywhere—including those in Europe and

in China. Banks in violation

would be kicked out of the

SWIFT (Society for World-

wide Interbank Financial

Telecommunication) net-

work, which is the world’s

largest payment-messaging

system. This would effective-

ly prevent such banks from

conducting any international

transactions. Three North

Korean banks were recently

ousted from SWIFT, but this

measure would also apply

to financial institutions that

deal with companies doing

Kicking the North Korea can down the road is no longer an option. business with the North. KNS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES