The Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed legislation Thursday that would expand sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile development, cyberhacking activities and human rights record.
The panel approved the bipartisan bill Thursday by a unanimous voice vote, and Senate leadership is expected to bring to a vote on the Senate floor sometime in the next few weeks.
“The latest nuclear test is a reminder of the failure of current U.S. and international policy to eliminate the threat of North Korea’s nuclear program,” Sen. Bob Corker, the committee’s chairman, said in a statement. “We need a proactive approach that will more effectively isolate the regime instead of continuing to respond to mounting threats and provocation.”
The measure requires the president to sanction any person involved in Pyongyang’s activities that violate international law, including engaging in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and prohibited arms-related materials, as well as human rights abuses and unlawful cyberactivities.
Under the bill, anyone in violation of such activities would face the seizure of assets, visa bans and denial of government contracts. The bill also requires the administration to submit to Congress a written strategy for implementing and enforcing sanctions, combating North Korea’s cyberactivities, and promoting and encouraging international engagement in curbing Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.
“This legislation acknowledges that sanctions and diplomacy are most effective when integrated into a comprehensive strategy that engages all of our instruments of national power, while creating a multilateral effort to achieve this effort,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the ranking member of the committee.
Sens. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., the bill’s authors, thanked the panel’s leadership for helping forge compromise language that not only targets illicit activities but also Pyongyang’s trade in key industrial commodities.
“The Obama administration’s policy of ‘strategic patience’ toward North Korea has been a strategic failure,” Gardner said, noting that Pyongyang’s nuclear test earlier this month marked the third nuclear test to take place during the Obama administration. The tests demonstrate North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities, he said, and show “we can no longer turn a blind eye to the North Korean threat.”
