Luxury Trade Sanctions

Anyone following the news these days knows that North Korea has drawn the ire of quite a few countries following their nuclear tests earlier this year. Given the fact that it is a regime that many countries view as a threat, the next obvious step was to impose sanctions against the country in an effort to force them to see that complying with the requirements of the United Nations was the only way to go. They imposed sanctions against them in terms of their trade goods. Weapons and weapons systems were obviously high on the list. Since North Korea had already detonated nuclear weapons grade devices, there was no need to provide them with weapons delivery systems capable of delivering these weapons to the rest of the world. It made sense. What also seemed to make sense from the North Korean perspective was the fact that they chose to thumb their nose at the U.N. and the rest of the world. It appeared that trade sanctions wouldn't work. Or would it?

One of the unforunate things in recent years is the fact that countries or people with enough money and connections can get their hands on almost anything they want in terms of weapons and the like. The enforced sanctions didn't seem to be having effect so the U.S. decided to impose further sanctions on what it termed as luxury goods. This includes items such as iPods, DVDs (legal, no word on pirated copies), cognac, water-skis and luxury cars. Apparently President Kim Jong Il is a sucker for these items and it is reported that he often has many of these items in his possession or that he enjoys giving them away to loyalist families as tokens of appreciation for their continued support.

In an effort to hopefully impose a sanction that will have more of an impact on President Kim, the U.S. is effecting this trade sanction very soon. I find it rather humorous that as we approach the holiday season this type of sanction is being put in place. As it is, there are many parents here in the U.S. who struggle to find all the items on the lists of their kids and family; one can imagine similar difficulties arising in North Korea if this sanctioning works the way it is supposed to. But will it be as effective as we hope? According to intelligence reports and eyewitness accounts, President Kim has a movie library of approximately 10,000 movies. Now, my collection is much smaller than that but still everything I own is a legal copy. Still, during my trips to India I have seen the latest and greatest movies already available on VCD or DVD, sometimes even before they are released here.

Given the fact that the pirating industry is still alive and well in these places, is it truly going to be effective to try and impose sanctions on exporting movies? And what about other goods such as cognacs and the like? Sure, they can complain, but people adapt. How long will it be before some other liquor or some other drink becomes the drink of choice? That's not to say that these sanctions aren't a good idea, or at least another way of getting the North Koreans to possibly see reason. My worry would be that this would help make the black market all the more prevalent in North Korea. Some would say that's the point or that is something we shouldn't be worried about, but the one thing I would worry about is that we would be portrayed as in an even more negative light because of it. These luxury sanctions are definitely something that we should try in the hopes of 'convincing' North Korea to come back to the negotiating tables, but we should also continue through diplomatic channels as well.