WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released the following statement Thursday after the Treasury Department announced new sanctions on Chinese businesses and individuals that support illicit North Korean financial activity:

“Even President Trump now appears to recognize that a China-first approach to North Korea simply will not work.  We should neither expect China to prioritize our interests over their own or solve our problems for us.  We must coordinate all our economic, diplomatic, military, and political instruments in a coherent and comprehensive strategy – one pursued in close coordination with our allies, South Korea and Japan.    I have long advocated that even as we should indicate an openness to explore diplomatic options to verifiably freeze North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs we should simultaneously be imposing additional sanctions on Pyongyang, including secondary sanctions on China if appropriate, and improving our deterrent and defensive posture on the Korean Peninsula and in the region. Today’s measures by Treasury are entirely appropriate given North Korea’s continued efforts to evade sanctions, and China’s insufficient efforts to bring that behavior to an end. There is no perfect solution to the North Korea dilemma.  But today’s actions can serve as an important piece of a broader strategy to create the necessary framework for efforts to reach a workable diplomatic solution.”

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