A new round of sanctions targeting North Korea would force Chinese banks to choose between doing business with the United States and doing business with North Korea.
Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey and Maryland Democrat Chris Van Hollen announced Thursday their Otto Warmbier Banking Restrictions Involving North Korea, or BRINK, Act was added as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2020, which passed the Senate later that day. The amendment aims to apply sanctions to joint ventures evading North Korea embargoes, 200 of which involve Chinese banks and financial institutions, according to the senators.
“It’s going to target North Korea’s illicit financial network by imposing mandatory sanctions on those businesses, banks, any enterprises that are doing business with North Korea,” Van Hollen said.
Known as secondary sanctions, these measures give the Treasury Department a much bigger weapon to crack down on the business dealings of foreign adversaries.
“Essentially, these sanctions are modeled off the Iran sanctions, and they would present Chinese banks with a very simple choice,” Toomey said. “You can do business in the United States, or you can do business with North Korea. But you can’t do business with both.”
Van Hollen said the United States needs the additional sanctions to counter North Korea’s illicit nuclear activities. The regime is running at least one covert uranium enrichment facility just outside the capital of Pyongyang, he said. He added that satellite imagery also shows the regime is constructing new missiles, including possibly two intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“It’s critical that we exert maximum pressure on the North Korean regime to achieve our goal of denuclearization on the Korean peninsula,” Van Hollen said.
Toomey argued the new sanctions would “strengthen the hand of U.S. negotiators” in future meetings. A U.S.-North Korea summit foundered in February after President Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un reached an impasse. The White House is reportedly in discussions to set up a third summit, but a date has yet to be announced.
The amendment was named in memory of Otto Warmbier, an American student who was imprisoned in North Korea in 2016 and died shortly after his release in 2017 at the age of 22. Warmbier’s parents, Cindy and Fred, have been strong advocates for tougher sanctions on Kim’s regime since their son’s death.
“North Korea to me is a cancer on the Earth,” Cindy Warmbier said during a press conference in May. “And if we ignore this cancer, it’s not going to go away, it’s going to kill all of us.”
Before Trump can sign the Warmbier amendment into law, the NDAA must pass both houses of Congress. Senate leadership struck a deal on Wednesday paving the way to the final vote on the legislation Thursday in exchange for holding a vote Friday on language that would require Trump to receive congressional approval before going to war with Iran. The senators said they were confident the bill would also pass the House.
