Six ways Trump administration can avoid war with North Korea

help from the West to screen for complicated financial arrangements designed to hide North Korean involvement, and others are simply not interested in implementing the sanctions because they benefit from cut-rate North Korean pricing, Ruggiero said.

STOP CHINESE CARRIERS

The U.S. could start publicly calling out companies involved in North Korea’s weapons programs, such as two Chinese trucking companies that provided or helped build large vehicles North Korea uses to transport, erect and launch its missiles, said Richard Fisher, a China and Korea analyst at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. The China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation and the China National Heavy Duty Truck Group, or Sinotruk, have provided trucks or large missile carriers that North Korea uses to transport missiles aimed at U.S. forces in Asia, Fisher said.

The vehicles were displayed in an April 15 military parade, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s forces showed off their capabilities and intentions to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles able to reach U.S. cities.

EXPOSE BEIJING’S SUPPORT

U.S. intelligence officials could expose companies involved in helping North Korea obtain the capacity to produce lithium-6, a substance crucial for the development of thermo-nuclear weapons — hydrogen bombs and boosted atomic bombs — that produce a far more powerful blast than mere atomic bombs, Fisher said.

According to a March 17 report by the Institute for Science and International Security, citing government sources, North Korea arranged in 2012 to purchase industrial equipment and materials in China, including mercury and lithium hydroxide.

Those substances have civilian as well as military uses but together indicate an effort to produce lithium 6, the ISIS report said.

That means the Chinese government approved the transfer of technology to manufacture thermonuclear weapons to North Korea, Fisher said.

“Only when these leaders are identified and given the international opprobrium they deserve will they even bother to consider changing their policies,” he said.

TOUGHER U.N. SANCTIONS

The November Security Council sanctions resolution “calls upon” the international community to “exercise vigilance” over North Korean activities that produce revenue for the regime and its weapons program. Among these are workers sent by North Korea abroad to earn hard currency used for its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, according to the Security Council. This “slave labor,” Ruggiero said, has been used to build World Cup facilities in Qatar and St. Petersburg, Russia, in the Russian logging industry, and in Kuwait and generates $500 million annually for North Korea.

Tillerson should seek a new resolution that cuts off North Korea’s access to revenue streams from laborers and to counter illicit activities such as cyber bank heists and drug trafficking, Ruggiero said.

U.S.-COALITION SANCTIONS

The U.S. could bypass the Security Council and impose its own sanctions. The Trump administration could develop a multinational coalition to cut off revenue to the North Korean government, like the Obama administration did to counter Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

The U.S. and its allies should issue arrest warrants for senior company officers in China and other countries who participate in military assistance programs that benefit North Korea and seize their assets, Fisher said.

They could start with targeting individuals, companies and financial institutions who did business with the Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Company, a Chinese firm named in U.S. sanctions issued in September, or citizens of China, Russia, Vietnam and Cuba who worked with North Koreans named in sanctions issued March 31.

CUT ACCESS TO U.S. BANKS

The U.S. Treasury could cut off access to the U.S. financial system for banks, companies and individuals anywhere in the world who do business with North Korean entities. That would shut down North Korea’s missile and conventional weapons sales, which represent 40% of the nation’s economy, said Bruce Bechtol, a political science professor at Angelo State University in Texas and an expert on North Korea.