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US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs chair Ed Royce

Lawmakers with the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs sponsored a bipartisan bill on Mar. 21 to further strengthen existing legislation on North Korean sanctions.

While many new terms have been left up to the executive to discretion, the move is seen as a reflection of the US Congress’s hard-line mood on Pyongyang.

The Korea Interdiction and Modernization of Sanctions Act, a bipartisan bill sponsored on Mar. 21 by Republican Party subcommittee chair Ed Royce and Democratic Party ranking member Eliot Engel among others, includes terms that would toughen sanctions by revising previous North Korea sanctions legislation passed across party lines early last year in response to North Korea’s fourth nuclear test and ballistic missile launches.

The new tougher terms would allow the executive branch discretion to ban the sale and transfer of crude oil and petroleum products to North Korea by other countries except for humanitarian purposes, along with the hiring of North Korean workers. Overseas companies that employ North Korean workers could be designated as subject to sanctions and banned from asset transactions within US jurisdiction. The executive would also be given the authority to consider the purchasing or obtaining North Korea of food, farming, fishing, and textile products and the provision of telephone, telegraph, and other communication services to North Korea as subject to sanctions.

While the measures would not be subject to mandatory enforcement by the executive, they could function to pressure the executive into intensifying sanctions against the North. Most of the new terms, including those dealing with crude oil supplies and purchasing of fishing and textile products, target Chinese companies doing business with North Korea. But the card would not be an easy one for the White House to play, as the sanctioning by US domestic law of Chinese businesses engaged in normal commercial transactions with the North Korea could lead to intensifying objections from Beijing.

The bill would also strengthen Congressional oversight and monitoring of enforcement of North Korea sanctions by expanding the scope of reports submitted to Congress by the executive, including lists of those not complying with the North Korean international financial network interdiction, list of foreign individuals and institutions employing workers sent by North Korea, and details about cooperation between North Korea and Iran.

The bill also calls for US government redesignation of North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism, citing the killing of Kim Jong-nam, and orders a report to Congress within 90 days of passage on whether the redesignation is made.

The bill could take some time to be passed, as Congress finds its hands tied with domestic issues such as allegations of collusion with Russia by associates of President Donald Trump and passage of Trump health care insurance. But passage could move up on the priority list if North Korea engages in actions that raise tensions.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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