WASHINGTON -- The Republican-led House on Thursday overwhelmingly voted to impose new sanctions on North Korea, targeting its shipping industry and use of slave labor.
Lawmakers approved the measure on a 419-1 vote as tensions continued to mount over North Korea's advancing nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Adm. Harry Harris Jr., the top U.S. military officer in the Pacific, has warned lawmakers that it's a question of when, not if, Pyongyang builds a nuclear-tipped missile capable of striking the U.S.
The Senate must take up the measure next.
The bipartisan legislation is aimed at thwarting North Korea's ambitions by cutting off access to the cash the government needs to follow through with its plans. The measure is sponsored by Rep. Ed Royce of California, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Eliot Engel of New York, the committee's senior Democrat.
The bill bars ships owned by North Korea or by countries that refuse to comply with U.N. resolutions against it from operating in American waters or docking at U.S. ports. Goods produced by North Korea's forced labor would be prohibited from entering the United States, according to the measure.
Anyone who uses the slave labor that North Korea exports to other countries would be subject to sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the bill states. At times when the nation is facing unusual or extraordinary threats, the president has wide authority under the law, including the power to block or prohibit transactions involving property in the U.S.
Royce said companies from Senegal to Qatar to Angola import North Korean workers, who send their pay back to Pyongyang, earning North Korea billions of dollars in hard currency each year.
"This is money that Kim Jong Un uses to advance his nuclear and missile program and also pay his generals, buying their loyalty to his brutal regime," he said. "That is what the high-level defectors that I meet with say. So let's squeeze his purse."
The bill also requires President Donald Trump's administration to determine within 90 days whether North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism. Such a designation would trigger more sanctions, including restriction on U.S. foreign assistance.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meanwhile, pressed Southeast Asian governments during a working lunch to ensure "leak-proof" enforcement of sanctions against North Korea and to prevent the nation's diplomats from conducting business that could benefit its weapons programs.
Last weekend, a North Korean midrange ballistic missile apparently failed shortly after launch, the third recent test-fire failure. North Korean ballistic missile tests are banned by the United Nations because they're seen as part of the North's push for a nuclear-tipped missile that can hit the U.S. mainland.
As international pressure on the North increased over its nuclear activities, the nation issued a rare criticism of China through a commentary, saying its "reckless remarks" on the North's program are testing its patience and could trigger "grave" consequences.
China, North Korea's largest trading partner and main benefactor, suspended imports of North Korean coal in line with U.N. sanctions earlier this year and has recently been urging its ally to stop nuclear and missile activities over U.S. pressure to use its leverage to resolve the nuclear standoff.
Chinese state media outlets also have unleashed regular criticisms on North Korea.
The commentary released Wednesday by the state-run Korean Central News Agency said "a string of absurd and reckless remarks are now heard from China every day only to render the present bad situation tenser."
Asked about the commentary during a regular briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Beijing's position on "developing good neighborly and friendly cooperation with North Korea is also consistent and clear."
The North Korean article cited recent commentaries by Chinese state media outlets that it said shifted the blame for deteriorating bilateral relations onto the North and raised "lame excuses for the base acts of dancing to the tune of the U.S."
"China should no longer try to test the limits of the DPRK's patience," the North Korean commentary said, using the acronym for its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. "China had better ponder over the grave consequences to be entailed by its reckless act of chopping down the pillar of the DPRK-China relations."
The article was not attributed to any government agency or official; the writer was identified only as Kim Chol. Still, it's unusual for the North to directly criticize China. Previously it has couched such criticism by referring to China only as "a neighboring country."
Information for this article was contributed by Matthew Pennington, Hyung-Jin Kim, Matthew Brown and Liu Zheng of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/05/2017