12 | FORBES INDONESIA 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 crackdown on this repugnant
regime, for humanitarian and national
security reasons. The Trump adminis-
tration, 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 seri-
ous economic pain on Pyongyang and put pressure on
China to make good on its own pledges.- Bar any travel to North Korea by U.S. citi-
zens that is not explicitly sanctioned by Washing-
ton. While the State Department strongly warns U.S.
citizens not to go to that odious country, that’s not
the same as an outright prohibition. Remember, ev-
ery 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 terror-
ist activities. - Put North Korea back on the U.S. list of ter-
rorist states. In a misbegotten bout of appeasement
President George W. Bush removed that designa-
tion in 2008, in the hopes that doing so would induce
Pyongyang to keep its promises to throttle back its nu-
clear and missile programs. We’ve seen how success-
ful that Neville Chamberlain-like move has been.
Pyongyang has routinely violated such agreements
since Bill Clinton began this abject appeasement pro-
cess in 1994. North Korea’s nuclear program proceeds
apace, and tests of its increasingly potent ballistic mis-
siles—which will soon be able to reach our shores—are
now routine. - Start applying serious sanc-
tions on all banks and com-panies
that do business with North Ko-
rea. We began doing this in the early
2000s, and the sanctions were starting
to be effective, which is why Pyong-
yang signaled the Bush administra-
tion 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 en-
tity found not to be in compliance
would be barred from doing any business 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 Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecom-
munication) network, which is the world’s largest
payment-messaging system. This would effectively
prevent such banks from conducting any international
transactions. Three North Korean banks were recently
ousted from SWIFT, but this measure would also ap-
ply to financial institutions that deal with companies
doing business with the North. - Announce that the U.S. Navy would be free to
interdict ships suspected of transporting North
Korean military products, including nuclear parts,
or of transporting military items or nuclear parts
to Pyongyang. This would forcefully let the world
know that we are finally dead serious about decisively
dealing with this rogue regime. - Step up our antiballistic missile efforts, with
the stated goal of shooting down any future mis-
siles fired by North Korea. Such efforts would reas-
sure South Korea, Japan and other Asian nations that
we are not abandoning our post-WWII policy of pro-
tecting them and keeping the peace in the region.
Powerful stuff, this. But kicking the North Korea
can down the road, as we have done for more than 20
years, is no longer a viable option.