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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump (AFP Yonhap News)

North Korea’s sixth nuclear test – its first since both US President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae-in took office – means that the Korean Peninsula will face a sharp rise in tensions for the near future. With the Trump administration facing fewer and fewer options, it now looks likely to have to come to grips at some point with how to move the situation toward negotiations.

Trump responded to the latest nuclear test, which took place in the middle of the night by US time, with a tweet on the morning of Sept. 3.

“[North Korea’s] words and actions continue to be very hostile and dangerous to the United States,” he wrote.

Trump also called North Korea a “rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China,” and wrote that South Korea “is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work.”

Trump’s remarks echo his previous comments following North Korea’s intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) launch on Aug. 29, when he wrote that “all options are on the table” and that “talking is not the answer.”

For now, Washington appears to have no options but to initiate discussions on additional UN Security Council sanctions. Trump’s references to China and South Korea read as both a rebuke and a call to join in actively on pressure. The reduction or halting of China’s supplies of crude oil to the North appears likely to be the biggest issue going ahead. Resolution 2371 adopted by the UNSC on Aug. 7 included a full-scale ban on North Korean coal and seafood exports, but did not include a reduction or halt of crude oil supplies.

A diplomatic source in Washington, D.C. predicted that if the US pursues additional sanctions, it is “very likely to actively pursue the placement of a ceiling on Chinese crude oil supplies to North Korea.” This means that Washington may outwardly demand that China halt all crude oil supplies, its real goal could be to establish an upper limit – as Beijing is unlikely to accept a full-scale halt. From the US’s standpoint, establishing a ceiling would allow it to pressure China to continue reducing supplies whenever the situation deteriorates further.

It remains unclear whether Beijing will agree. North Korea, for its part, is also likely to have anticipated a worst-case scenario when it went ahead with its test. Japan’s Tokyo Shimbun newspaper reported on Sept. 2 that North Korea was confirmed to have set the goal last April of stockpiling one million tons of petroleum in anticipation of sanctions.

Additional sanctions may also be imposed on garments, which accounted for 25% of North Korea’s total exports last year, or around US$720 million. The current structure for garment exports involves toll processing in North Korea through subcontracting relationships with China.

The Trump administration is also expected to hasten efforts at independent sanctions on Chinese companies. On Aug. 22, the US Treasury Department imposed independent sanctions on institutions and individuals in China and Russia deemed to have assisted with North Korea’s nuclear program.

As part of the process, the Trump administration is likely to turn up the pressure on Seoul to join in sanctioning Chinese businesses. The South Korean government’s decision to list Chinese companies targeted for US sanctions in its official bulletin on Aug. 28 and request “particular caution in transactions with the parties in question” was reportedly the result of US pressure.

But indirect sanctions through increased pressure on China, whether pursued at the UNSC level or independently by the US, are a limited approach, since they require a long time to yield results and North Korea has already developed means of sidestepping them. The Trump administration, which has declared “all options are on the table,” may raise the possibility of military action, but that approach has already lost much of its teeth. Shows of force with South Korea and increased deterrent capabilities would merely build the fence higher, without stopping the advancement of North Korean nuclear and missile capabilities taking place inside it.

North Korea is expected to continue taking advantage of the practical limitations faced by the US and pressuring it to choose between acknowledging its nuclear weapons and negotiating or allowing it to continue developing its nuclear capabilities. The fact that Pyongyang has reportedly set an internal timeline for “negotiations” with the US by the end of the year suggests it may continue ratcheting up its strong-arm diplomacy tactics using its nuclear and missile programs if the US does not accede to its demands. It’s a situation where Seoul and Washington have handed the initiative over to Pyongyang – and are finding themselves in an increasingly awkward position as a result.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent and Kim Ji-eun, staff reporter

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