North Korea, not Russia, may well prove to be the first legitimate test of Donald Trump’s international affairs policy and it seems the American people approve of his response to the crisis.
Once against the mainstream media is out of touch with what the majority of Americans really care about. Noting that, Trump lambasted the media for failing to adequately cover the unanimous U.N. Security Council vote over the weekend to sanction Pyongyang. “The Fake News Media will not talk about the importance of the United Nations Security Council’s 15-0 vote in favor of sanctions on N. Korea!” He tweeted.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” Mr. Trump told reporters at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”
The President’s cabinet has taken the diplomatic fight to North Korea and proven quite effective to this point. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in the Philippines Monday that the best signal that North Korea could give the US that they’re prepared to talk “would be to stop these missile launches.”
US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley scored an unexpected unanimous show of unity in the UN Security Council when all 15 members of the council voted in favor of sanctions against North Korea. Some observers had said previously that they were uncertain Haley could garner the nine votes needed for the resolution to pass.
The strongly worded sanctions prohibit the export of North Korean seafood, iron, iron ore, coal, lead, and lead ore. Those industries alone comprise for more than a third of all of the North Korean exports. That amounts to $1 billion annually in revenue for a country already barely able to sustain itself.
The UN resolution limits the number of workers the country can send abroad. Income gained from those workers earnings has been a major source of revenue in the past for North Korean government. New limits were also set on North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank, banning new joint ventures between North Korea and foreign companies.
It is significant that China voted for the measure, given that it is North Korea’s largest trading partner and that President Trump and his cabinet members have been pressuring Beijing to take a harder stance against Kim Jong-un. The sanctions vote is the biggest step China has taken against the regime so far.
President Trump lauded the sanctions in a tweet on Tuesday morning. “After many years of failure, countries are coming together to finally address the dangers posed by North Korea,” he said. “We must be tough & decisive!”
US officials and analysts doubt that North Korea has the technology needed to deliver a nuclear payload on an intercontinental ballistic missile. However, North Korea’s last ICBM test alarmed the US and its allies when it demonstrated that its missiles could potentially reach much the continental United States.
“North Korea’s development of ballistic missiles and its nuclear program are becoming increasingly real and imminent problems for the Asia-Pacific region including Japan, as well as the rest of the world,” a Japanese government said in an annual threat assessment released on Tuesday. “It is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturization of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear warheads.”
Public approval for the White House’s response to this threat so far is more than positive. In spite of the disputed success rate of sanctions already in place, 76 percent of Americans are in favor of increasing sanctions on North Korea. Unlike virtually everything else on the hill, there is strong bipartisan agreement (84 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of Democrats). Nearly 70 percent of lawmakers support placing sanctions on Chinese banks and other concerns that do business with North Korea.
There are other indications that Trump’s policies concerning the matter have the favor of the American public.
Two years ago, 55 percent of Americans said North Korea was a critical threat facing the United States. Recent polls and increases to 75 percent. For the first time in nearly 30 years, a majority of Americans support military action if North Korea attacks South Korea.
For now, President Trump’s policies concerning North Korea have earned him even the left’s grudging recognition as being presidential.
~ American Liberty Report
