Sanctions – Page 11

March 10, 2016

Before Josef Schwartz spends an eternity in Hell, would Austria please send him back to prison?

Reading through the new Panel of Experts report, I saw a finding, at Paragraph 108, relating to two 2011 “[s]hipments of spare parts and equipment for submarines and military boats brokered by Green Pine” — a North Korean trading company designated by the U.N. over proliferation concerns — “from Austria to Angola and Viet Nam.” Reading on, I saw that “[t]he consignments were shipped from Vienna by an Austrian national, Josef Schwartz, through his company, Schwartz Motorbootservice.” Remember him? Sure you...

Europe/Luxury Goods

March 9, 2016

N. Korea sanctions are failing because of China. That’s why we need secondary sanctions.

Last November, I put up a post cataloging China’s long and deep history of breaking U.N. sanctions against North Korea. The post, which relied heavily on reports of the U.N. Panel of Experts monitoring North Korea sanctions, attracted a great deal of attention, including from Senate staff as they considered the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act. The new POE report, released yesterday, is almost 300 pages long (including exhibits) and has more than enough material to make a rich...

"United" Nations/China & Korea/Sanctions

March 9, 2016

U.N. report: Bank of China told shipper in illegal arms deal to hide N. Korean links

Today, the U.N. Panel of Experts monitoring (non-)compliance with its North Korea sanctions released its latest report, and it’s a doozy. Including exhibits, it’s almost 300 pages long, and the substance should be material for several posts. Our first installment comes from the December 2015 conviction of Chinpo Shipping over the 2013 Cuba arms shipment. Remember last July, when I asked, “What about the Bank of China?” Well, we have our answer, and from the look of it, the Bank of...

China/Money Laundering/Sanctions

March 8, 2016

China’s compliance with North Korea sanctions, so far: mixed, yet hopeful signs.

As I’ve long argued in these pages, China has a long history of evading and violating the North Korea sanctions it votes for at the U.N. Without the threat of secondary sanctions, it will revert to non-enforcement. When the next U.N. Panel of Experts report is published in the coming days, it will reveal yet more extensive evidence of sanctions violations by Chinese banks, ports, and businesses, often with the knowledge of the government agencies that regulated them. Since early...

Sanctions

March 6, 2016

WaPo editorial: “China’s switch” on N. Korea sanctions “had a lot to do with” H.R. 757.

After the President signed H.R. 757 into law, but before the U.N. Security Council approved resolution 2270, sanctions skeptics predicted that the new U.S. law would complicate diplomatic efforts to get China to enforce U.N. sanctions. Events thus far have refuted that view. After the President signed the new law, China, which had inflexibly opposed new U.N. sanctions for weeks, reversed course and voted for the strongest North Korea sanctions resolution so far. Even before China’s official retreat, China’s banks had already begun to freeze...

"United" Nations/China & Korea/Sanctions

March 4, 2016

Europe can play an important role in enforcing U.N. sanctions against N. Korea

With the enactment of UNSCR 2270, the EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini says the EU will soon move forward with what EU regulators refer to as “restrictive measures” against North Korea. “There is scope for the European Union to adopt additional autonomous restrictive measures to complement and reinforce the new U.N. measures,” said a diplomatic note seen by Reuters on the latest discussions. Germany, France, Spain and Poland want to see what more the bloc can do in areas...

Europe/Sanctions

March 3, 2016

Treasury freezes assets of N. Korea’s National Defense Commission, No. 2 official Hwang Pyong-so

Within minutes of the U.N. Security Council’s approval of Resolution 2270, a very good friend and Democratic House staffer forwarded me this notice from the Treasury Department. (My transparent attempt to suck up to the next majority party in our budding idiocracy, now that the party that gave us Todd Akin, Christine O’Donnell, and Sarah Palin has found an equally qualified presidential candidate. But I digress.) As it turns out, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC,...

Sanctions

March 2, 2016

The U.N.’s new N. Korea sanctions will change the game … if they’re enforced.

The U.N. Security Council has just approved a new resolution, UNSCR 2270, sanctioning North Korea under Chapter VII and Article 41 of the U.N. Charter. Now that the Security Council has approved the resolution, I’m publishing this post, which I’ve been holding. It’s a strong text — very strong. In reviewing it, it’s useful to begin with my own wish list: Requiring member states to report North Korean property, accounts, and transactions to the U.N. Panel of Experts; Shipping sanctions...

"United" Nations/Sanctions

February 29, 2016

How the new U.N. and U.S. sanctions on N. Korea can complement each other

It would be futile to post a detailed analysis of the U.N. Security Council’s draft North Korea sanctions resolution before the Security Council approves it. For now, it should suffice to say that the text falls short of some of my expectations, but exceeds far more of them. American liberals often default to the view that unilateral U.S. sanctions are useless or counterproductive, and that only the U.N. can give sanctions global reach and legitimacy. American conservatives often default to...

"United" Nations/Sanctions

February 21, 2016

China’s largest bank freezes North Korean accounts

Not even a week after President Obama signed the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act into law (full disclosure), a South Korean newspaper is reporting that a number of Chinese banks, including China’s largest bank (and the world’s largest, in terms of assets) have frozen the accounts of their North Korean customers. It has been confirmed that some Chinese banks in northeastern China, including the Dandong, Liaoning Province branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country’s largest...

China & Korea/Sanctions

February 18, 2016

What the U.N.’s new North Korea sanctions resolution should (and should not) do.

Yonhap reports that the U.S. and China have made progress toward an agreement on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution. Although we’ve seen few hints about exactly what sanctions China is willing to sign up for — much less enforce — China is paying lip service to the notion that North Korea must pay a “necessary price” for its behavior. Has Xi Jinping relented in his unprecedented stubbornness, or was it always China’s plan to relent after stalling us, in the hope that...

China & Korea/Class Warfare/Diplomacy/Sanctions

February 17, 2016

The end of the beginning: President Obama will sign North Korea sanctions into law

Update, 2/18: The President signed the bill. ~ ~ ~ This afternoon, the White House made it official — the President will sign the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act. The White House didn’t say when, but I’d expect it to happen within a week or so. The question now turns to implementing the bill to maximize its impact on the regime, while minimizing the impact on the North Korean people. For well over a month, the...

Sanctions/U.S. Law

February 15, 2016

The rebirth of an alliance: The U.S., South Korea & Japan are finally getting North Korea policy right

As you and I both know, I spend a lot of keystrokes here kvetching about the lax enforcement of sanctions against North Korea, but I’ve also written that diplomacy is essential to making sanctions work. Now, for the first time I can recall, the U.S., South Korea, and Japan are coordinating their policies as allies should. They’ve coordinated their defense responses to the North’s missile test, their calls for tougher U.N. sanctions, their strategies to strengthen sanctions enforcement, and their recruitment of new...

Diplomacy/Kaesong/Sanctions/Sunshine

February 12, 2016

N. Korea sanctions bill headed for President’s desk later today; Hillary makes a funny about Bernie.

By now, most of you know that the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, the Senate’s version of H.R. 757, passed the Senate unanimously Wednesday night. The House is expected to pass the Senate’s version this morning and send it to the President’s desk. In an election year, when floor time is especially precious, it was remarkable and humbling that the Senate spent an entire day debating this bill. Senator after senator came to the floor to give supportive...

Sanctions/U.S. Law

February 9, 2016

NYT: How China helped N. Korea buy ski lift cable cars, and break U.N. sanctions

Yesterday, I posted about hunger in North Korea, the fact that Kim Jong-un is spending the nation’s lunch money on missiles and ski resorts, and the importance of helping the North Korean people make that connection though a comprehensive information operations strategy. The New York Times has bolstered the evidence of North Korean and Chinese culpability for this tragedy with a detailed report on North Korea’s purchase of the equipment for its ski resort through China. Previously, NK News revealed that the...

China & Korea/Class Warfare/Luxury Goods

February 7, 2016

Ed Royce’s North Korea sanctions bill is already giving President Obama leverage over China

Kim Jong-un’s Groundhog Day message to the world was the announcement of a long-range missile test, and as you’ve no doubt heard, he has since made good on that threat. Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” this provocation cycle has been a variation on an endless loop. In 2006, 2009, and 2013, the missile test came before the nuke test, but if reports that His Corpulency is preparing yet another nuclear test are true, that will still technically be the case. Otherwise, events have...

China/Diplomacy/Sanctions

February 1, 2016

Senate Foreign Relations Committee agrees on, passes North Korea sanctions bill

Last week’s big news was that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the last real legislative obstacle to a North Korea sanctions law, reached a compromise and unanimously approved a tough new version. Both Republicans and Democrats gave supportive statements before and after the vote: “We have a bill that, in many respects, is stronger than the House bill,” said the Senate committee’s top Democrat, Ben Cardin of Maryland. “What we do is put pressure on not just the government, but...

Sanctions/U.S. Law/U.S. Politics

January 26, 2016

Senate sanctions bills pick up new co-sponsors

It may be of no more than symbolic value at this point, with intense behind-the-scenes discussions ongoing over a bipartisan compromise bill, but symbols do matter, and a few more senators have lined up behind different versions of the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act in the Senate. One of the Senate bills, S. 2144, has picked up Republicans David Perdue and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Steve Daines of Montana, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Kelly Ayotte of New...