Economic War

Dale00 · Sep 21, 2017

Individuals, Companies and Banks that do business with North Korea are now in the crosshairs. Economic war with NK is about to start in earnest....much better than physical war.
"The Trump Doctrine" is potentially in the making. If this effort succeeds, it will be a major accomplishment for his administration. H/t Scott Adams

Remarks by Secretary Mnuchin on President Trump’s Executive Order on North Korea
Today, President Trump strengthened the U.S. government's ability to cut off funding to the North Korean regime and its weapons development program. Despite multiple UN Security Council Resolutions, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un continues to threaten the world and his neighbors with provocative nuclear and missile tests. President Trump's new Executive Order significantly expands Treasury's authorities to target those who enable this regime's economic activity wherever they are located.

For far too long, North Korea has evaded sanctions and used the international financial system to facilitate funding for its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. No bank – in any country – should be used to facilitate Kim Jong-un's destructive behavior.

This new Executive Order will authorize Treasury to impose a range of sanctions, such as suspending U.S. correspondent account access to any foreign bank that knowingly conducts or facilitates significant transactions tied to trade with North Korea or certain designated persons. These sanctions will be forward looking, and applied to behavior that occurs following the date of the Executive Order. Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that, going forward, they can choose to do business with the United States or with North Korea, but not both.

This new Executive Order also enables Treasury to target anyone conducting significant trade in goods, services, or technology with North Korea, and to ban them from interacting with the U.S. financial system. It also allows us to block and freeze assets of actors supporting North Korea's textiles, fishing, IT, and manufacturing industries.

We call on countries around the world to join us by cutting all trade and financial ties with North Korea in order to achieve a denuclearized Korean peninsula. As President Trump stated in his speech to the UN General Assembly, "It is time for all nations to work together to isolate the Kim regime until it ceases its hostile behavior." We will continue to work with our allies and partners to stop North Korea from abusing the global financial system to further Kim Jong-un's reckless ambitions.

https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/sm0162.aspx

Frederick · Sep 22, 2017

The only thing this 'economic war' will accomplish is to further the suffering of the people of North Korea.

His people will eat grass and tree bark. Kim Jong Fatass and his generals will feast everyday. the regime will scrape by from the scraps the Chinese and Russians throw at them to keep their heads above water. The Chinese and Russians have no intention of letting the Regime crumble. Though they might fudge around the edges to appease the Trump Administration.

Kim Jong Fatass sees America as an existential threat. He won't stop pursuing nuclear weapons because he sees it as the only long-term guarantee of the survival of his regime.

the threats of President Trump probably only confirm in that mind of his and his cabal of the correctness of this course of action.
Therefore, he will continue the research and production of nuclear weapons.

I have read that some of their progress has been as a result of Ukrainian(read: Russian) and Chinese missile technology. It's plausible in my mind that they're using North Korea as a proxy to distract America from Russia and China's adventures elsewhere. There are reports of Russian weapons showing up in the hands of militants in Afghanistan, for example.

The only way i see North Korea being stopped from obtaining sufficient intercontinental nuclear strike capability is through pre-emptive war. I think we're just going to have to get used to the threats of the North Koreans and accept on some level their acquisition of nuclear weapons capable of devastating the motherland.

A war with North Korea would be devastating, tens of thousands of South Korean civilians and thousands of allied soldiers would be killed potentially in such a conflict.

Of course it is a fools errand to try to state with any certainty the course of such a conflict, but if China gets involved...you're not even playing the same game anymore.

We may be the world's foremost superpower, but it would be foolish to underestimate China. We did that in the last Korean War and we paid dearly.

Pokinfun · Sep 22, 2017

Dale are you saying Trump is the first president to use economics as a tool foreign policy?

Dale00 · Sep 22, 2017

Pokinfun said:
Dale are you saying Trump is the first president to use economics as a tool foreign policy?

To the best of my knowledge, he is the first to attempt to target individual companies. This promises to be a game changer. It may or may not work but he is being innovative and deserves credit for that. Past efforts at economic pressure having been government-centric. This promises to be precision economic war.
If the ruling class in China has some bad actors who cannot be reined in, precision targeting of their banks or trading firms could work. If the Chinese ruling class is united, it is much less likely to work: they will play a shell game of switching company names.

donner · Sep 22, 2017

Targeted economic sanctions is nothing new. In fact, Obama used it against Putin during the unrest in the Ukraine. I believe they froze the assets and visas of individual near Putin and leveled other sanctions on russian companies (i believe several were in the energy sector).

Dale00 · Sep 22, 2017

Like many other areas in the news, the information we read is filtered. So in effect we are arguing points of view without a completely solid basis. That said, my impression is that in the past, economic sanctions have not been pursued with vigor. It is hard to find unbiased facts about recent events in the Ukraine conflict or anywhere else. It appears to me that such past efforts were weak fences that the cow could get her nose under and push through. When it is a choice between letting a serious nuclear threat grow worse and losing hundreds of thousands of allied lives, Trump deserves credit for pursuing this third path.

Time will tell if it works or not but intense economic war seems the wisest choice at present.

donner · Sep 22, 2017

Dale00 said:
Like many other areas in the news, the information we read is filtered. So in effect we are arguing points of view without a completely solid basis. That said, my impression is that in the past, economic sanctions have not been pursued with vigor. It is hard to find unbiased facts about recent events in the Ukraine conflict or anywhere else. It appears to me that such past efforts were weak fences that the cow could get her nose under and push through. When it is a choice between letting a serious nuclear threat grow worse and losing hundreds of thousands of allied lives, Trump deserves credit for pursuing this third path.

Time will tell if it works or not but intense economic war seems the wisest choice at present.

not really. There are lots of people out there who study these very issues, you just have look beyond the general google search (which relies on site ranking). The results you want are there, but they might be 5, 10, 20 pages deep to locate.

It's not shaky ground to say that Trump is not the first to use targeted economic sanctions. She just left for an invited talk in Memphis, but i'll see if i can get my wife to pass along some literature for you to read about this very topic. She has studied sanctions (traditional) for years, as well as worked on the affects of targeted military action campaigns on the peace process (think the US bombs your factory so that you put pressure on your BFF to start negotiations with the US). I'm solo parenting today otherwise i'd try to find a few of them for you myself right now.

The hard part of economic sanctions, like all sanctions, is that it depends heavily on groups being willing to adhere to them. And not all sanctions are designed to be the heaviest possible, either. It's diplomacy. The US can freeze the assets of someone if they are located in the US, but can't do it in, say, Switzerland unless the Swiss are willing to help. So if a person has their assets spread out to various countries, they can absorb the sanctions more easily than someone who relies heavily on the US banking system. Generally, the more groups that are willing to 'punish' the targeted individuals or state, the more affect they will have.

And, much is also dependent on who is being targeted. The more isolated a group or individual is, the more the sanctions will hurt. Going after someone from Russia has potential issues that going after someone in Cuba does not. The Russians have more ability to absorb the sanctions and/or retaliate with sanctions of their own. That sometimes means a more measured approach by the US.

Trump does deserves credit for doing it. but it is not the first time it's been done, nor something he gets credit for coming up with. And that does not even begin to discuss Trump's role in escalating the situation unnecessarily with things like his 'rocket man' comments and such.

Dale00 · Sep 22, 2017

I look forward to seeing some unbiased analysis of recent history. Something tells me I will have to take your word for it being unbiased.

If Trump makes it works, it will deserve to be "The Trump Doctrine" unless your unbaised academcians and media pundits can find a way to poision public perception.

Poke78 · Sep 22, 2017

Economic sanctions are merely a first step in a continuum that may lead to all-out war...or maybe not. Confining consideration of economic sanctions to just the 20th Century provides plenty of examples of steps in the continuum that had varying results. Perhaps the best example of the continuum leading to war was what the US did to Japan in the late 1930s.

Dale00 · Sep 22, 2017

I suggest keeping a hopeful eye open to see how it may unfold rather than looking into the rear-view mirror.

Economic War

Dale00

Sharpshooter

Frederick

Sharpshooter

Pokinfun

The Most Interesting Man in the World

Dale00

Sharpshooter

donner

Sharpshooter

Dale00

Sharpshooter

donner

Sharpshooter

Dale00

Sharpshooter

Poke78

Sharpshooter

Dale00

Sharpshooter

Similar threads

Latest posts

Economic War

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

The Most Interesting Man in the World

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

Sharpshooter

Similar threads

Join the conversation!

Join today and get all the highlights of this community direct to your inbox. It's FREE!