Pressuring China

Dave Boyer and S.A. Miller report at The Washington Times,

President Trump persuaded China to freeze all financial transactions with North Korea and ordered a new round of U.S. sanctions Thursday, closing out his first U.N. General Assembly with a major diplomatic victory in his efforts to curb Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile programs short of war.

In a carefully choreographed strategy deployed from the shadow of the United Nations headquarters in New York, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin called the head of China’s central bank very early Thursday to alert him that Mr. Trump was preparing an executive order to sanction any financial institutions doing business with North Korea. He asked for the cooperation of China, the main source of North Korea’s cash.

Hours later, the People’s Bank of China announced it was directing all other banks in China to halt financial transactions with North Korea.“Foreign financial institutions are now on notice that going forward they can choose to do business with the United States or North Korea, but not both,” Mr. Mnuchin said. “We call on all countries around the world to join us in cutting off all trade and financial ties with North Korea in order to achieve a denuclearized Korean Peninsula.”

Read more here.