President Donald Trump scored a major diplomatic victory at the United Nations and raised hopes that the North Korean Missile Crisis might be resolved short of war. Soon after Trump signed an executive order targeting financial institutions doing business with North Korea, the Peoples Bank of China, that country’s central bank, agreed to freeze all financial transactions with the Pyongyang regime, according to the Washington Examiner.
The strategy is to cut off financial support of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs
North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs require the expenditure of a lot of money that that country cannot generate by itself.
It needs cash from financial institutions, especially from China. Trump has managed to cut off that money from North Korea’s primary sponsor. He has announced that any other bank or individual doing business with Kim Jong-un will not do business with the United States. The hope is to halt the Pyongyang regime’s drive for a nuclear arsenal by cutting off its financial ability to create one and, indeed, remain a functioning country.
The other shoe dropped
Trump had gotten the attention of the world by threatening the destroy North Korea if it continues to threaten the United States and her allies. The threat of what would be in effect a one-sided nuclear war seems to have influenced China to be more cooperative in restraining their client state.
Beijing has found that North Korea’s misbehavior has suited its purposes in causing headaches for the United States and her allies South Korea and Japan. Now the prospect of mushroom clouds rising south of the Yalu River has caused China to change its mind and its attitude.
What happens next?
So far Kim Jong-un has been undaunted.
His latest threat is to explode a hydrogen bomb somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, a grievous escalation if he can manage it. The question that arises now can North Korea maintain itself as a financially viable state long enough for it to do something so provocative that the United States has no choice but to retaliate.
Kim has also decided to make the conflict he has started to become personal, comparing President Trump’s threats to the barking of a dog.
The rebuke suggests that the leader of North Korea has some personal, psychological issues that are driving his desire to acquire a nuclear arsenal capable of threatening his enemies.
If achieving the Financial Collapse of the regime proves to be insufficient, the next step in the strategy to end the nuclear crisis is to effect regime change by removing Kim from this Earth. The question that arises is will whoever replace him choose to be more sensible.
