Ed Markey — Senator Markey's Floor Remarks on North Korea Sanctions Legislation (extended) - Feb. 10

Mr. President, let me begin by thanking the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, the gentleman from Tennessee, for the focus which he has brought to these issues of nuclear proliferation, uh to the uh to the I think great service of our country to having all of our people understand the threats that can come from Iran, that can come from North Korea, that can come from other places across our planet. Uh it is the ultimate issue.

Uh if we get it wrong, the consequences are catastrophic. And so, I just wanted to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for continuing to have the hearings, continuing to develop legislation that focuses uh our people on this issue. We are the global leader. We have to set the example uh for the rest of the world to follow. So, I thank you for your great leadership on these issues. Mr. President, the sanctions in this bill represent a firm response to North Korea's latest nuclear test on January 6th and to its launch of a long-range rocket last weekend.

These brazen actions remind us of the serious threat that Pyongyang poses to global and regional security and underscores the urgency of ending North Korea's nuclear and missile programs. Together, with our international partners, we must be vigilant against North Korea's development of boosted nuclear bombs, which would allow Kim Jong-un's regime to shrink its weapons and load them onto missiles. And we must unequivocally convey to North Korea that any proliferation of nuclear technologies to other countries will lead to the gravest of consequences.

North Korea's nuclear and missile programs violate numerous UN Security Council resolutions. Those include resolution 2094, which required North Korea to abandon, quote, all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs and imposed sanctions to pressure Kim to return to disarmament negotiations. These measures have not yet persuaded Kim to abandon his nuclear ambitions, in part because major gaps remain in the sanctions regime, particularly its enforcement by China.

In 2009, the Security Council imposed a conventional arms embargo on North Korea, but China insisted on a loophole allowing North Korea to import small arms and light weapons. North Korea has exploited this loophole to continue its lucrative international trade in conventional arms. According to the UN's own Council of Experts on North Korea, this trade remains, quote, one of that country's most profitable revenue sources.

North Korea is especially well known for purchasing light weapons from China, which it then sells to other countries for cash. Although North Korea's arms exports violate UN sanctions, the Chinese companies who sell the arms in the first place get off scot-free. The involvement of Chinese companies in North Korean arms smuggling is part of a larger pattern of China's lax enforcement of nonproliferation sanctions against North Korea.

As Assistant Secretary of State Tom Countryman acknowledged in a Foreign Relations Committee hearing last May and again in December, Chinese entities continue to sell technologies to North Korea that could assist in its development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. China's efforts to clamp down on these activities remain feeble at best. If the United States is to continue to provide extensive assistance to China's nuclear power industry, China must, in return, crack down on those who enable North Korea's nuclear provocations and its weapons smuggling networks.

The United States must also take actions on our own. That is why I worked to include an amendment in this bill that will impose sanctions on anyone who facilitates North Korea's arms trade, including Chinese corporations. My provision will further reduce North Korea's access to revenue, undermine its international arms smuggling, and put pressure on Kim to return to negotiations. We must also put financial pressure on North Korea by designating the country as a primary money laundering concern.

This would allow the Treasury Department to exclude North Korea from using the dollar-based financial system. The use of this designation in 2005 against the Banco Delta Asia in Macau disrupted North Korea's access to revenue and led one North Korean negotiator to admit that, quote, "You finally found a way to hurt us." North Korea is one of the leading counterfeiters of US currency. It uses front companies to hide its illicit earnings from trade in narcotics, weapons, and proliferation technologies.

But although the Treasury has designated 18 financial institutions in four countries, including Iran, as primary money laundering concerns, it has never designated North Korea. For this reason, I filed an amendment in the Foreign Relations Committee, which I will work to include in the final version of this bill that could require the Treasury Secretary to determine on an annual basis whether North Korea is a primary money laundering concern and to provide Congress with information about that determination, as well as any financial restrictions that result from it.

Just as we protect the international financial system from North Korea's counterfeit currency and money laundering, we must protect American investors who may unknowingly invest their money in companies that do business with North Korea. The prospect of American companies investing in North Korea is quite real. One American company, Firebird Management, has publicly declared its intention to invest in North Korea's oil industry.

That is why I introduced another amendment in committee that would require companies who issue securities in the United States to annually disclose any investments in North Korea to the Securities and Exchange Commission. This requirement would not impose any regulatory burden on companies that do not invest in North Korea, but for those companies that do, they should have that information made public because the American people deserve to know which American companies are investing in North Korea.

And again, I hope to strengthen this bill down the line uh by incorporating that requirement. Mr. President, we know that sanctions are not an end in and of themselves. Rather, they are meant to pressure the Kim regime to return to disarmament negotiations. But at the same time, as we pursue that critical goal, we must work to reduce the risk that North Korea will use its nuclear weapon, whether deliberately or through miscalculation.

First and foremost, we must make clear to Kim that his regime will not survive any use of nuclear weapons. We must also reduce the risk of Kim lashing out in desperation if he comes to believe that we intend to destroy his nuclear weapons in a preventative war. He will face pressure to use them or lose them. Thus, even as we work to deter Kim, we must establish a means of communicating during crises to avoid the risk of accidental nuclear war.

Ensuring de-escalation at the same time as we pursue deterrence and denuclearization will not be easy. Nevertheless, given the devastating consequences of nuclear war, it is critical that we take a comprehensive approach. Without additional sanctions, Kim will never disarm. But without a means of controlling escalation, we could one day wake up to a nuclear disaster that no one wants, but everyone would lament. So, we should work on a continuous basis to make sure that in the same way that the Russian the Soviet president and the president of the United States was able to communicate to reduce the likelihood that we would have an accidental nuclear war, we have to make sure that we have done everything in our power to accomplish the same goal uh with the North Korean government, whether we like them or not.

So, as we impose these new sanctions, uh and I want to compliment the chairman. I want to compliment the Senator from Colorado and the Senator from New Jersey for their great work on this legislation. Uh it is going to be a long twilight struggle to ultimately deal with that regime. Uh and I think we will have to return to it over and over again, but I think as we're going forward, it is critical through the Chinese or through others to make sure that we have maximum communication.

We could have an accidental nuclear war. It could happen. And we have to make sure that it is avoided.