US. Economic Sanctions on North Korea

U. S. sanctions North Korea economically for they believed that North Korea is a sponsor or supporter of international terrorism. Until now they are still practicing the Marxist-Leninist, a communism government. North Korea is seen as posing a threat to U. S. national security. The U. S. has criticized North Korean missile exports and has suspected Pyongyang of secretly developing a nuclear weapons program. ( Feffer, 1999) In accordance with U. S. law, the United States limits some trade, denies trade in dual use goods and services, limits foreign aid, and opposes entry into or support from international financial institutions.

At the President’s discretion, North Korea would also be subject to the economic sanctions pursuant to the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998, under which the administration has identified North Korea as a “country of particular concern” since 2001, and pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, under which the administration has classified North Korea in the category of most severe offender since 2003. (Rennack, 2005) I firmly believe that this sanction is unfair to the civilians for they are the one who directly affected.

This research paper will explore the reasons behind the U. S. economic sanctions to North Korea and how these affect the citizens that are innocent, that work decently. Background of the Controversy Excerpted from the journal of John Feffer, AFSC Asia Desk (1999) vol 4, no. 15: North Korea is the United States' longest-standing adversary. The U. S. helped to divide the Korean peninsula at the end of World War II, and then waged war against North Korea in the “1950s” (Timothy C. Brightbill and John B. Reynolds, III, 2000).

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It has maintained economic sanctions against Pyongyang for nearly fifty years. In this post-cold war era, North Korea remains a useful demon. The Pentagon has inflated the North Korean threat in order to rationalize its desire for a missile defense system, to justify a capacity to fight two wars simultaneously, and to explain the need to maintain 37,000 troops in South Korea (and 100,000 troops in Asia overall). Relations between the two countries worsened in the early 1990s when North Korea expanded its nuclear program and the U. S.

considered bombing the suspected weapons development facilities. In 1994, after Jimmy Carter sat down with North Korean leader Kim II Sung, the two sides eventually negotiated their way back from the brink of war. The resulting Agreed Framework required that North Korea freeze its nuclear program in exchange for shipments of heavy fuel oil from the U. S. and two light-water nuclear reactors to be built by an international consortium funded largely by Japan and South Korea. As part of this agreement, the U. S. and North Korea pledged to move toward full normalization of relations.

(Choi and Lee, 21005) The Agreed Framework averted war but did not create a lasting peace. The U. S. government has continued to criticize North Korean sales of advanced missile technology to countries such as Pakistan and Iran. In August 1998, without notification, North Korea launched a missile/satellite that passed over Japan and demonstrated its possession of three-stage rocket technology. At the same time, U. S. and South Korean intelligence agencies leaked information that an underground facility in North Korea might house a nuclear weapons program.

The Clinton administration, reluctant at first to give much credence to the underground nuclear facility, eventually insisted on access to determine if North Korea had departed from the terms of the Agreed Framework (to which it had so far adhered). North Korea, too, has a list of grievances. It has charged the United States with violating the Agreed Framework by not delivering the heavy fuel oil according to schedule and by not moving forward as planned with the light-water reactors.

It has also accused the Clinton administration of backtracking on its promise to normalize relations and thus to lift economic sanctions. Finally, North Korea has been criticized the U. S. military buildup in Northeast Asia. Beginning of the Crisis According to Council of Foreign Relations (2003), in October 2002, after North Korea reportedly admitted it had a program to enrich uranium. U. S. officials said that violated a 1994 aid-for-disarmament deal Pyongyang had made with the United States, South Korea, and Japan.

The Bush administration concluded that diplomatic and economic pressure including the threat of economic isolation was the best way to stop North Korea's nuclear program. The administration said it would not agree to face-to-face talks with the North until it first abandoned its nuclear ambitions in a verifiable manner. In November, the United States persuaded South Korea, Japan, and the European Union to suspend oil deliveries that North Korea was receiving under the 1994 deal. I disagree on this quick decision to suspend the oil deliveries to North Korea aside from having under deal in 1994 agreement.

The U. S. central Intelligence has no evidence that it has assembled a weapon. U. S. intelligence also hasn't confirmed North Korea's claim that it has begun to reprocess fuel rods into weapons-grade plutonium. This decision affects the civilians of wrong misconception that they have enough assembled weapons. But because of the firm decision of U. S. the North Korea responded in December, it announced it would reopen a 5-megawatt reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear complex that had been shut down under the terms of the 1994 agreement.

North Korea said it needed the reactor to generate electricity. Experts say that while the reactor cannot create significant amounts of electricity, it could produce enough plutonium like enriched uranium, fuel for a nuclear weapon for about one bomb a year. North Korea also removed surveillance cameras and other monitoring equipment from the site, expelled inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, and withdrew from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. (Manyin, 2005)

Furthermore this reaction of North Korea made Bush administration officials, to pursue the economic sanctions even for the aid they give to North Korea because they believed that the North wants both aid and atomic weapons. This speculation of Bush administration could harm the civilians. In fact some analysts say that North Korea might be willing to abandon its pursuit of nuclear arms in exchange for economic and energy aid and formal security assurances from the United States. This should be given chance by the U. S.

Government to suspend the economic sanctions to protect the civilians in North Korea. More communication needed by both parties to settle these issues and look for the security of the civilians who are economically affected. Current U. S. Policy 1994 Agreed Framework that held in Geneva, October 21, 1994: Both sides will cooperate to replace the DPRK’s graphite-moderated reactors and related facilities with light-water reactor (LWR) power plants. The two sides will move toward full normalization of political and economic relations.

. Both sides will work together for peace and security on a nuclear free Korean peninsula. Both sides will work together to strengthen the international nuclear non proliferation regime. Under the agreement, the United States, South Korea, and Japan offered foreign aid including 500,000 tons of fuel oil per year and a $4 billion project to build two nuclear reactors ill-suited for military purposes in return for North Korea's promise to abandon its nuclear arms program. (Council of foreign Relation, 2003) But this agreed Framework has been inconsistent.

Washington has delayed shipments of heavy oil and made only token moves toward normalizing relations with North Korea. The problems begin with Washington’s half-hearted commitment to the 1994 Agreed Framework. When the U. S. signed the Agreed Framework, many in the administration expected the North Korean government to collapse before the promised light-water nuclear reactors would be operational in 2003. Rather than a step toward normalization, the agreement functioned as a stopgap measure. (Huntley and Savage, 1999) The North Korean government, however, has not collapsed.

The power plant construction whether by design by accident, has encountered delays. More critically, the Clinton administration gave in to congressional opposition and lifted only the least important of the economic sanctions that Pyongyang desperately wants removed. Although Washington rhetorically supports a more open and internationally integrated North Korea, the economic embargo further severs Pyongyang from the capitalist world and reinforces the isolationist faction within the North Korean political elite. (Cumings, 1999) A second problem concerns interpretation.

North Korea, in the grip of a food crisis and a general economic collapse, is desperate to earn hard currency. This desperation is one of the reasons for its provocative acts. North Korea, negotiating from a weak position, is accumulating bargaining chips to get the best deal from the U. S. and Japan. Washington, however, has treated the missile launch and the missile sales as military gestures designed to threaten the national security of the United States and its Asian allies. In other words, the U. S. has developed military responses to a crisis that requires primarily economic solutions. (Huntley and Savage, 1999)

The Bush administration showed economic sanctions even before the controversy on North Korea making some Nuclear weapons. Their behavior in delaying the shipments of heavy oil is like sanctioning the North Korea to normalize their economic status. This resulted to hardship in the normal citizens living in North Korea. They created the agreement to stop the gap but their actions in delaying worsen the gap and worsen the economic status of the poor citizens. In addition the delaying of U. S. in supplying makes the citizens and the North Korea itself grip of a food crisis and a general economic collapse. The U.

S. should look up these concerns instead of implementing the economic sanctions that worsen the economic struggle of the North Korean civilians The U. S must continue to supply the oils needed by North Korea because based on the Intelligence reports indicate that North Korea has developed a ballistic missile capable of reaching the western United States, but the missile, known as the Taepo-Dong 2, has never been tested. Also, North Korea has never tested a nuclear device. Therefore, the North Korea never offended country especially U. S. The sanction must be lifted for the poor citizens’ favorable condition.

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