The United States has proposed wide new United Nations sanctions on North Korea that would ban exports of coal and other commodities, a U.N. Security Council diplomat said Friday.
The new penalties are likely to be adopted quickly by the Security Council in response to two North Korean intercontinental ballistic-missile launches last month, the diplomat said. A vote could come as soon as Saturday.
The bans on coal, lead, iron and seafood exports could deny North Korea $1 billion in annual revenue, out of total exports of $3 billion, according to the diplomat, who insisted on being identified only as a Security Council diplomat in a briefing for reporters.
The U.N. sanctions would also cap North Korea’s lucrative program of farming out laborers, called guest workers, to other nations, the diplomat said. Employer nations, which include China and Russia, would be barred from increasing the number of North Korean workers they use.
The additional sanctions, which were hashed out by U.S. and Chinese diplomats over the past month, do not contain the toughest penalties under discussion, including broad new prohibitions on all exports of oil as well as potential additional banking and commercial penalties opposed by China and Russia.
The diplomat acknowledged that the United States had sought some elements that were not part of the new proposal but would not provide details. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had identified oil as one area she hoped to target when discussions began.
The new sanctions would prohibit new joint ventures between North Korean entities and foreign corporations and cap foreign investment in existing ventures.
There are also new restrictions on North Korean imports of “dual use” products - commercial items that could have benign applications but can also be turned to military use.
The goal is to restrict North Korea’s access to hard currency and products that it can use to further its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, both of which the Security Council has declared out of bounds.
“We are looking for as many ways to squeeze them to get them to the table,” the diplomat said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is on an Asian tour focused partly on increasing pressure on North Korea and by extension its traditional ally and protector China.
Tillerson said Tuesday that the United States does not consider North Korea an enemy and does not seek to topple the regime of leader Kim Jong Un. He invited talks aimed at persuading Kim that he has too much to lose by hanging on to his weapons. So far, Kim’s calculation has been the opposite - that his weapons and the means to deliver them buy him irreplaceable leverage over the United States, his principal adversary.
China and Russia, which hold veto power on the Security Council, oppose the North Korean nuclear weapons program but have been unwilling to go along with some Western-backed proposals to punish the country.
“We have been working very hard for some time, and we certainly hope that this is going to be a consensus resolution,” Reuters quoted Chinese U.N. Ambassador Liu Jieyi as saying Thursday.