Trump should not be too eager to jump to the gun

Targeting one Chinese individual, 27 entities and 28 vessels of China, the United States announced on Friday what its Treasury Department called "the largest North Korea-related sanctions tranche to date". Whose failure, according to US President Donald Trump, may lead to a "phase two", which he said would be "very rough", and "very, very unfortunate for the world".

In the meantime, his administration is reportedly working on a plan to significantly intensify interceptions of ships suspected of violating the UN sanctions imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, in the hope of plugging a loophole that allegedly allows Pyongyang to finance its weapons programs via maritime smuggling.

Such moves only threaten to jeopardize the current Olympic inter-Korean détente that has brought hopes of way out of the dangerous predicament on the Korean Peninsula, with the Republic of Korea saying on Sunday that the DPRK is willing to hold direct talks with the US. Those with an optimistic outlook hope such talks happen and lead to negotiations that secure a lasting peace agreement.

Well-wishers have always hoped for the best-case scenario in dealing with the DPRK nuclear crisis – resolving it within the UN framework with little pain, if any, inflicted. But the current easing of tensions, encouraging as it is, is only a window of opportunity that can shut at any moment.

While it is open it needs to be made the most of. Trump’s threats, even if intended as a pressure tactic, along with his adherence to the position that Pyongyang take concrete steps toward denuclearization first, will only slam the window closed, restarting the vicious cycle of tit-for-tat actions that had threatened to get out of hand prior to the current inter-Korean cordiality.

The UN-endorsed sanctions are the best way to encourage the DPRK to regard its nuclear weapons as a bargaining chip to get the security guarantees it needs, rather than only means of guaranteeing its security.

For those sanctions to bite, however, besides the sanctions themselves being tough enough, they have to be carried out.

Yet that does not justify Washington adopting a "long-arm" approach to carrying out those sanctions. The biggest pitfall to concerted efforts to put an end to the DPRK’s nuclear adventure through sanctions is for Washington to divide the international coalition by seeking to unilaterally punish entities and individuals that violate the UN sanctions rather than letting the violators be dealt with by the stakeholders concerned under domestic laws.

It has been said that wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and being able to choose the lesser evil. Rather than harking back to his earlier threat of "fire and fury", Trump should accept Pyongyang’s offer of talks and work with all stakeholders to end the crisis and denuclearize the Korean Peninsula peacefully.