Mick Hartley

Trump can't seem to help himself when it comes to trading insults with Kim Jong-un, but while the media concentrate on the battle of words between the silly hair-styles, it's worth noting that the President is being far more effective than his predecessors ever were at putting the pressure on:

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday he has signed a new executive order giving the Treasury Department more power to target firms and individuals doing business with North Korea.

The move paves the way for new sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

"A new executive order will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea's efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind," Trump said at the start of a trilateral luncheon meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York.

"The order enhances the Treasury Department's authorities to target any individual or entity that conducts significant trade in goods, services or technology with North Korea," he said….

Trump said those targeted under the new measures will now have to choose between doing business with the U.S. or with the North.

"It is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal rogue regime," he said. "What we will do is identify new industries including textiles, fishing, information technology and manufacturing that the Treasury Department can target with strong sanctions."

 The measures will also be designed to disrupt North Korea's shipping and trade networks, Trump added.

The announcement sends a clear signal to China, North Korea's major ally and trading partner. Beijing is responsible for 90 percent of the North's external trade and has come under growing pressure to rein in its wayward neighbor.

Trump said China's central bank had just told the country's other banks to "immediately" stop doing business with North Korea, and thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping for that "unexpected" decision.

"For much too long North Korea has been allowed to abuse the international financial system to facilitate funding for its nuclear weapons and missile programs," he said.

Joshua Stanton has the details, and concludes:

This week, President Trump acted strongly, decisively, publicly, and with a deliberate seriousness of purpose. Banks and governments around the world will disregard his words at their peril (meaning, very few of them will). His misbegotten threats against North Korea (as opposed to its regime) shouldn’t distract us from what he did right, if only because his predecessors could not do it right. His words and actions, and in tandem with other governments’ actions to cut their trade and diplomatic ties to North Korea, should be difficult for Pyongyang to withstand for long. We may soon conclude the sanctions-never-work portion of our narrative and enter the sanctions-are-starving-North-Korean-babies portion of our narrative fairly soon. In fact, it looks like we already have.