NORTH KOREA ISN'T LISTENING TO AMERICA'S "LIAR-IN-CHIEF"

…The Latest missile test by North Korea

 

Russia has jumped in, to supply North Korea with oil and their other needs

 

President Trump has drawn many Red Lines in his various Tweets about the young dictator of North Korea.  All of these Tweets have obviously fallen on deaf ears, and Trump is looking even less effective than was President Obama when he ignored the Red Line he drew in Syria.

 

As of last week’s UN Security Council approval of a package of new economic sanctions that included a cap on oil imports to North Korea, effectively slashing its fuel supply by 30. A US proposal for a "total oil embargo" was dropped in exchange for Russian and Chinese support for the sanctions.

 

As of that package, Russian smugglers are already scurrying to the aid of North Korea.  They are doing it with shipments of petroleum and other vital supplies that will help that country weather the new economic sanctions.  The US officials said this in their assessment that casts further doubt on whether any financial measures can force dictator Kim Jong Un to abandon his nuclear weapons program.

Russian exports to North Korea have spiked, while China, North Korea’s biggest trading partner, is finally beginning to ratchet up their economic pressure on its troublesome small neighbor.  This is in the face of Kim Jong Un’s provocative behavior, such as last week’s test of a powerful nuclear bomb.

 

Official documents point to a rise in oil tanker traffic between North Korean ports and Russia’s Vladivostok harbor, the far-eastern Russian city near the small border shared by the two countries.

 

With international trade with North Korea increasingly constrained by the UN sanctions, Russia’s illegal entrepreneurs are seizing opportunities to make a quick profit on their small neighbor.  They have set up a maze of front companies to conceal their ­transactions and for laundering the payments.  This is all according to US law enforcement officials who monitor this sanction-busting activity.

 

This trade provides a lifeline to North Korea at a time when the United States is seeking to deepen Kim’s economic and political isolation.  This is a weak response to recent North Korean nuclear and missiles tests. Trump administration officials were hoping that these new trade restrictions by China, including a temporary ban on gasoline and diesel exports, would stop the Kim regime.  These bans were imposed this spring by a state-owned Chinese petroleum company, in hopes it would finally drive Kim to negotiate about halting work on nuclear weapons and long-range delivery systems.

“As the Chinese cut off oil and gas, we’re seeing them just turn to Russia,” said one of several current and former US officials who insisted on anonymity.  “Whenever they are cut off from their primary supplier, they just get it from somewhere else,” the official said.

                                                                                                                            

Most Americans are not aware, and the Trump administration isn’t going to tell us, that the increase in trade between Russia and North Korea was the primary reason for the new legal measures announced last month.  Treasury officials have stated that Russian nationals are helping North Korea evade US sanctions.

 

Court documents filed in support of the sanctions describe a web of alleged Russian front companies established by Russian oligarchs for the specific purpose of concealing their business arrangements with Pyongyang.

 

The smuggled goods mostly consist of diesel and other fuels, which are vital to North Korea’s economy and can’t be produced internally.  US agencies have tracked shipments of fuels, Russian industrial equipment and valuable metal ores as well as various luxury goods for the country’s leaders.

 

Satellite tracking of the traffic between Vladivostok and the port of Rajin in North Korea has become so heavy, that the local North Koreans have launched a dedicated ferry line between the two cities.

 

But even with that, over 90% of the North’s economy is still through their trade with China.  Thus, Beijing’s cooperation is key to any sanctions that seeks to force Kim to alter his behavior.

“Russia is now a major player in this realm,” said a former Treasury Department official.  “The Chinese may be fed up with North Korea and willing to do more to increase the pressure. But it’s clear that the Russians are not willing to go along with that.”  At least those wealthy Russians that are good friends with Vladimir Putin.

 

As proof of that statement, Russian President Putin, during a joint news conference last week with South Korean leader Moon Jae-in, refused to support new restrictions on fuel supplies for the North. “We should not act out of emotion and push North Korea to a dead end,” Putin said, according to media accounts of the news conference.  In addition, Moscow continues to criticize international efforts to impose more trade restrictions on North Korea.

 

International papers have described in detail how one company, Velmur, was set up by Russian operatives in Singapore to help North Korea purchase millions of dollars’ worth of fuel while keeping details of the transactions hidden.

Velmur was originally registered in Singapore as a real estate management company. Yet its chief function is: “facilitating the laundering of funds for North Korea financial facilitators and sanctioned entities.” For such an important company, it has no known headquarters, office space or even a Web address, but rather “it bears the hallmarks of a front company,” a filed complaint states.

 

Velmur worked with its Russian partners to obtain contracts this year to purchase nearly $7 million worth of diesel fuel from a Russian supplier known as IPC between February and May. In each case, North Korean operatives wired the payments to Velmur in hard currency using US dollars.  Velmur in turn used the money to pay IPC for diesel tanker shipments departing the port of Vladivostok.

 

The United States only enjoys some minor leverage because of the smugglers’ preference for conducting business in US dollars.

 

“There are vulnerabilities here, because the people that North Korea is doing business with, they want US dollars.  It was US dollars that the North Koreans were sending to Russia,” said a former Treasury official. “The Russians are not about to start taking North Korea's won.”

 

But “So what?” 

 

 

Unless the Trump administration can come up with real sanctions that will bring the Kim regime to the table, the Russians will continue to allow the North Koreans to develop their nuclear weapons and their missile technology for delivering a nuclear device to the US mainland.

 

Donald Trump had Tweeted: “That ain’t gonna happen!”

 

But it doesn’t appear that Kim Jong Un is listening to America's "Liar-in-Chief”.  And it appears that Russia's Putin will just continue to ignore his people that support North Korea, just to spite America.

Copyright G.Ater  2017