Colorado Republican Sen. Cory Gardner said Thursday it may be time for the global community to consider a “total and complete” economic embargo on North Korea.
“What we have to do is build a strong case, globally, that any economic interaction with North Korea is unacceptable,” Gardner said on Denver radio station 710 KNUS. “We have other nations that are buying coal, like China, and they should stop buying anything from North Korea, because that money is going back to the proliferation of the North Korean regime.”
“Perhaps it’s time, and I think it is time, that we start the discussion of a global, economic, total and complete embargo of North Korea. Let’s cut this regime off from the world,” the senator added.
Gardner made the comments just hours after a morning meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is scheduled for a trip to Asia next week.
On March 5, North Korea launched four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, the second missile test from the communist nation in as many months.
Asked if the hypothetical embargo might push North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to do something rash, Gardner said he believes Kim Jong Un would have to come to understand that he could not win with the world allied against him.
“This is a lose-lose situation for Kim Jong Un. And if he pushes the United States and other nations past that line that can’t be crossed – and that line that can’t be crossed is a willingness and active posture toward actually hitting the United States or our allies with a nuclear weapon – that they will have dire and grave consequences. But I don’t think that message has been sent from all of the right places, including China,” Gardner said.
Tillerson’s trip to Asia is expected to focus primarily on the North Korea threat, in particular, persuading China to take a more active role in pressuring and restraining their neighbor. Gardner said he expects the trip to result in the “emergence of a doctrine” on how the US and its allies will address the rogue nation.
The March missile launches from North Korea “took place two days after the beginning of Foal Eagle, an annual joint military drill between the United States and South Korea. The exercise is taking place in the context of already-heightened concern about the North Korean missile threat, as the United States is planning to deploy a terminal high-altitude missile defense system to the region.”
After the regime’s February missile tests, a group of senators including Gardner, sent a letter to President Trump outlining ways his administration could crack down on North Korea, which included the proposal of putting the nation’s banks on a sanctions list, thereby cutting them off from the international financial system.
