Trump should go easy on N. Korea over Warmbier death

DAN DEPETRIS

Otto Warmbier was the quintessential American college student. He faced a promising future and was keen to broaden his view of the world. It was likely that sense of adventure that convinced him to join a tour group traveling from China to North Korea.

In January 2016, North Korean authorities arrested Warmbier at Pyongyang airport for stealing a propaganda poster from a hotel. Two months later, he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for acts against the state.

 Fifteen months after that sentencing, Warmbier was flown back to the United States in a vegetative state. He died a few days later.

President Donald Trump described Warmbier’s incarceration and likely torture as “a total disgrace” that “should never ever be allowed to happen.”

There is no question that the Trump administration will need to respond in some formal way to Warmbier’s untimely death.

The problem with North Korea, however, is that we are not talking about a normal state operating under normal protocols. Its political leadership does not respect the normal moral value of right and wrong. This is exactly why the Trump administration must tread cautiously before doing anything that could turn a heartbreaking loss into a regional cataclysm.

Incremental, but effective, measures against Pyongyang in retaliation for Warmbier’s suspicious death would send a stark warning to Kim that his regime will be held accountable. But just as importantly, it would stop shy of goading the North Koreans into reacting in a violent or irrational way.

There are several policies that the Trump administration should and must implement. The most obvious recommendation is Trump prohibiting U.S. citizens from traveling to North Korea as tourists.

 Pyongyang must understand that it will no longer be able to profit from several hundred Americans visiting North Korea every year as long as the regime continues to arbitrarily arrest and prosecute U.S. citizens. In addition, the three Americans currently detained in North must be transferred immediately into U.S. custody.

Another option for the White House is an expansion of sanctions against any firm, individual, entity, financial institution, or government that accepts North Korean workers onto their territories.  In February 2017, the U.N. Security Council’s Panel of Experts on North Korea reported that the Kim regime “earns money by dispatching migrant workers overseas” - a practice that South Korea’s Unification Ministry has estimated brings in roughly $900 million a year to Pyongyang’s coffers. While $900 million not seem like a lot for a national government, it is a valuable source of revenue for North Korea, which needs every penny it can get to finance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.  Any country that continues to import forced labor from North Korea is contributing to the problem and does not deserve to operate within the U.S. financial system.

Regrettably, none of these measures will bring Warmbier back to life.  Many lawmakers in Washington would like to go a lot further including indefinitely suspending any talks between the U.S. and North Korea.
But it would be imprudent for the United States to terminate negotiating channels with Pyongyang that could be valuable  in the future.

This abridged article is taken from Reuters.