Trump applauds China for ‘bold ban on banks aiding N Korea’

DONALD TRUMP has announced new sanctions on North Korea, instructing the US treasury to take steps to prevent financial transactions with the rogue regime, prompting accusations by Kim Jong-un that he was “deranged”.

Mr Trump, speaking at a lunch with the leaders of Japan and South Korea, also declared that China had ordered the country’s banks to cease processing North Korean funds – a significant blow to Kim Jong-un’s regime.

He described China’s move, not yet confirmed by Beijing, as “very bold” and “unexpected”.

“That was a tremendous move, and we would like to thank President Xi of China,” he said.

Mr Kim said last night that Mr Trump would “pay dearly” for his threats. The North Korean leader said the US president was “unfit to hold the prerogative of supreme command of a country”. He described Mr Trump as “a rogue and a gangster fond of playing with fire”, a statement carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said.

Mr Trump has long argued that China, North Korea’s most important ally, does not try hard enough to bring its rebellious neighbour to heel. China, in turn, says the US overestimates its influence.

“Our new executive order will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea’s efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind,” said Mr Trump, speaking in New York on the sidelines of the UN general assembly. Last month, the Trump administration blacklisted 16 Chinese, Russian and Singaporean companies and people for trading with banned North Korean entities, including in coal, oil and metals.

White House aides said yesterday’s executive order was unlikely to halt all of North Korea’s oil imports. Before he met Mr Trump for lunch Moon Jae-in, president of South Korea, yesterday used his UN speech to strike a conciliatory note towards his troublesome neighbour – accepting that sanctions were needed to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table and force it to give up its nuclear weapons, but insisting Seoul was not seeking North Korea’s collapse.

Mr Moon warned that Pyongyang’s nuclear issue “needs to be managed stably, so that tensions will not become overly intensified and accidental military clashes will not destroy peace”.

South Korea approved a plan yesterday to send $8million (£5.9million) of aid to the North, as China warned the crisis on the Korean peninsula was getting more serious by the day. The last time the South had sent aid to the North was in December 2015 through the United Nations Population Fund.

Mr Trump’s lunch yesterday with Mr Moon was expected to be contentious, but publicly at least, appeared to go well. Mr Moon praised Mr Trump for his “very strong speech” to the UN in which the US president threatened to “totally destroy” the North.