Why U.S. Sanctions Are Unlikely to Deter North Korea

Daniel R. DePetris

Security, Asia

Pyongyang’s antics are making it more enemies by the week.

This past weekend, there was good news on the North Korea front. Yes, you heard that right; for a change, we aren’t talking about an underground nuclear test or another intercontinental ballistic missile launch screeching into the waters near Japan, but rather a unified message from the international community that Pyongyang’s antics are making it more enemies by the week.

After a month of negotiations between Washington and Beijing, the UN Security Council passed another resolution against North Korea that U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley described bombastically as “the most stringent set of sanctions on any country in a generation.” Whether that is an accurate assessment, the Security Council’s most recent sanctions measure against Kim Jong-un, coming a week after he authorized two ICBM tests in three weeks, has the potential to cause a lot of damage to Pyongyang’s pocketbook—if the resolution is implemented stringently. North Korea’s meager exports (pegged at about $3 billion per year) could decrease by a third, a $1 billion decline in export revenue, which means Kim will have $1 billion less to throw at his nuclear and missile programs. Countries will no longer be permitted to import North Korean seafood, iron, iron-ore and coal. Nor will they be allowed to aid in the shipment of those goods if they traveled through North Korean territory on route to their ultimate destination. Equally significant, nations accepting North Korean laborers will be prohibited from accepting more of them onto their territory.

With punishments like these, why wouldn’t the Trump administration celebrate? Even President Trump was pleased about the outcome, tweeting that the “United Nations Resolution is the single largest economic sanctions package ever on North Korea. Over one billion dollars in cost to N.K.”