Washington's latest round of sanctions against Pyongyang announced on Tuesday targets eight DPRK banks and 26 DPRK nationals, Koreans living or working in China, Russia, Libya and the United Arab Emirates. The US Treasury Department says all these individuals represent DPRK banks. Trump administration says the sanctions are just its latest move to financially isolate the government of Kim Jong-un for its continued nuclear program.
At the White House on Tuesday, Donald Trump blamed previous US presidents for not doing enough. North Korea is a situation that should have been handled 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago and five years ago and it could have been handled much more easily. You had various administrations, many administrations which left me a mess but I'll fix the mess.
Trump said the US was quote "totally prepared" to take what he called a devastating military option against the DPRK which this week warned it could and would shoot down US planes. Tuesday's unilateral US sanctions come just two weeks after the UN Security Council unanimously passed its own for a second time. Trump on Tuesday praised Beijing's efforts.
I applaud China's latest action to restrict its trade with North Korea and in particular I applaud China for breaking off all banking relationships with North Korea. But China on Tuesday called for calm and warned a war on the Korean Peninsula would have no winner. We hope the politicians from the US and DPRK have enough political judgment to realize that the use of force is absolutely not an option to solve the Korean Peninsula issue and other major concerns of relevant parties themselves. China we should note has not confirmed that it has cut off DPRK banks. Still that didn't stop Donald Trump on Tuesday from praising President Xi Jinping for having done so.