North Korea, Terror Sponsor
Editorial
The Wall Street Journal
November 20, 2017
President Trump has pledged to avoid the mistakes of his predecessors and stop North Korea from amassing a nuclear arsenal, and on Monday he took another symbolic step by restoring Pyongyang to the State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. The designation has as much moral as practical impact but is still welcome as diplomatic truth in advertising.
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The North has conducted six nuclear tests, fired ballistic missiles over Japan, and will before long be able to reach the continental U.S. with a nuclear-armed missile.
The re-listing highlights the North’s criminal behavior and will further isolate the regime.
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All of this is part of the larger U.S. effort to cut off the financial and other lifelines that have made a mockery of United Nations sanctions and allowed the Kim crime family to buy off the military and survive in power despite the North’s impoverishment. Mr. Trump said the Treasury will issue a new set of sanctions on Tuesday that may further squeeze countries or companies that do business with the North.
The conventional wisdom is that the North will never give up its nuclear program, but the only way to test that claim is by squeezing the regime as hard as possible on every front.