[h=1]'Caught RED HANDED': Trump attacks China over claim it's secretly supplying oil to North Korea in defiance of UN embargo and takes a slap at Bill Clinton nuclear deal[/h]
.
- Satellite images show Chinese and North Korean ships tied together in illicit oil transfers, a South Korean newspaper citing government sources reported
- South Korea claims there have been 30 such transactions in three months
- Oil sales to North Korea are barred UN resolution adopted in September
- Trump hinted at a possible confrontation in a tweet he sent Thursday in Florida
- 'Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!' Trump said
.
President Donald Trump gave Beijing a wrist slap on Thursday for alleged transfers of oil from Chinese tankers to North Korean ships that flagrantly violate a United Nations embargo.
U.S. satellites spotted the tankers trading oil with Pyongyang's ships 30 times in three months, a South Korean newspaper reported, citing officials within the country's government.
Trump jumped on the report this morning from the Palm Beach golf club he's been staging at during his trip to Florida.
The president hinted at a possible confrontation in a tweet that said: 'Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!'
As Trump motorcaded back from the club, where he was observed on the golf course, he sent out a second message that stressed the rightness of his position on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the wrongness of former President Bill Clinton's.
.
U.S. satellites spotted the tankers trading oil with Pyongyang's ships 30 times in three months, a South Korean newspaper reported, citing officials within the country's government.
Trump jumped on the report this morning from the Palm Beach golf club he's been staging at during his trip to Florida.
The president hinted at a possible confrontation in a tweet that said: 'Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!'
As Trump motorcaded back from the club, where he was observed on the golf course, he sent out a second message that stressed the rightness of his position on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the wrongness of former President Bill Clinton's.
.
President Donald Trump gave Beijing a wrist slap on Thursday for alleged transfers of oil from Chinese tankers to North Korean ships that flagrantly violate a United Nations embargo. A South Korean report said it's unlikely that China's communist government, led by Xi Jingping, does not know about the illicit trading
.
+6
The president sent a second tweet about North Korea as his motorcade arrived at Mar-a-Lago after an outing at Trump International Golf Club
The message that was accompanied by a 2 minute and 20 second video said, 'I've been saying it for a long, long time. #NoKo'
A soundbite of Clinton's 1994 announcement of an international agreement with Pyongyang that was supposed to halt North Korea's nuclear development acts as a scene setter in the video.
'This is a good deal for the United States. North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons,' the Democratic president says.
He is rebutted by Trump in an 18-year-old Meet the Press appearance in which the future president asserts, 'They're gonna have those weapons pointed all over the world, and specifically at the United States.'
Trump says in the clip that nuclear proliferation is 'the biggest problem' facing the globe.
'And we have a country out there, North Korea, which is sort of wacko, which is not a dumb, not a bunch of dummies, and they are going out and they are developing nuclear weapons,' he said. 'And they're continuing to do what they're doing, and they are laughing at us. They think we're a bunch of dummies.'
+6
Video that accompanied the tweet stressed the rightness of Trump's position on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the wrongness of former President Bill Clinton's
.
.
+6
The president sent a second tweet about North Korea as his motorcade arrived at Mar-a-Lago after an outing at Trump International Golf Club
The message that was accompanied by a 2 minute and 20 second video said, 'I've been saying it for a long, long time. #NoKo'
A soundbite of Clinton's 1994 announcement of an international agreement with Pyongyang that was supposed to halt North Korea's nuclear development acts as a scene setter in the video.
'This is a good deal for the United States. North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons,' the Democratic president says.
He is rebutted by Trump in an 18-year-old Meet the Press appearance in which the future president asserts, 'They're gonna have those weapons pointed all over the world, and specifically at the United States.'
Trump says in the clip that nuclear proliferation is 'the biggest problem' facing the globe.
'And we have a country out there, North Korea, which is sort of wacko, which is not a dumb, not a bunch of dummies, and they are going out and they are developing nuclear weapons,' he said. 'And they're continuing to do what they're doing, and they are laughing at us. They think we're a bunch of dummies.'
+6
Video that accompanied the tweet stressed the rightness of Trump's position on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and the wrongness of former President Bill Clinton's
.
The future president predicts in the interview that in five years the U.S. will be facing off against Pyongyang again but then it would have 'warheads all over the place, every one of them pointing to New York City, to Washington...'
Flash forward to a month ago, when Fox News reports that North Korea has developed an intercontinental ballistic missile that puts every U.S. city in range, assuming the warhead survives reentry.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis also states in the video that North Korea 'can threaten everywhere in the world' with its missiles.
Trump, who famously likes to keep his hand hidden, did not hint at what the U.S. response to the illicit trading between China and North Korea that was revealed this week might be.
Overhead images published by the The Chosun Ilbo on Tuesday appear to show ships from the two countries shackled together for a fuel transfer in the West Sea off China.
Such ship-to-ship trades are banned under a UN Security Council resolution adopted in September.
According to South Korean government sources, American satellites have pictured large vessels from both China and North Korea illegally trading in a stretch of the West Sea on multiple occasions.
One picture, reportedly taken on October 19, shows a ship called Ryesonggang 1 connected to a Chinese vessel, The Chosun Ilbo reports.
The US Treasury Department later placed six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels on sanctions list.
'As North Korea continues to threaten international peace and security, we are steadfast in our determination to maximize economic pressure to isolate it from outside sources of trade and revenue while exposing its evasive tactics,' Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a Dec. 26 statement.
+6
US satellites have spotted Chinese tankers transferring oil to North Korean ships 30 times in three months - despite strict UN trade embargoes, it has been claimed. One picture (above), reportedly taken on October 19, shows a ship called Ryesonggang 1 connected to a Chinese vessel in the West Sea off China
The Chosun Ilbo said the activity appeared to show attempts to bypass sanctions, although the report suggested that Chinese authorities were aware of the large transactions.
Cai Jian, an expert on North Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Telegraph, 'This is a natural outcome of the tightening of the various sanctions against North Korea.'
The tightening 'reflects China's stance,' the professor of political science at the Pusan National University in South Korea told the Telegraph, saying, 'There is a lot of under-the-radar on the Chinese side.
'Beijing does not police the border strictly or enforce the sanctions toughly. This could be that,' he added.
.
Flash forward to a month ago, when Fox News reports that North Korea has developed an intercontinental ballistic missile that puts every U.S. city in range, assuming the warhead survives reentry.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis also states in the video that North Korea 'can threaten everywhere in the world' with its missiles.
Trump, who famously likes to keep his hand hidden, did not hint at what the U.S. response to the illicit trading between China and North Korea that was revealed this week might be.
Overhead images published by the The Chosun Ilbo on Tuesday appear to show ships from the two countries shackled together for a fuel transfer in the West Sea off China.
Such ship-to-ship trades are banned under a UN Security Council resolution adopted in September.
According to South Korean government sources, American satellites have pictured large vessels from both China and North Korea illegally trading in a stretch of the West Sea on multiple occasions.
One picture, reportedly taken on October 19, shows a ship called Ryesonggang 1 connected to a Chinese vessel, The Chosun Ilbo reports.
The US Treasury Department later placed six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels on sanctions list.
'As North Korea continues to threaten international peace and security, we are steadfast in our determination to maximize economic pressure to isolate it from outside sources of trade and revenue while exposing its evasive tactics,' Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a Dec. 26 statement.
+6
US satellites have spotted Chinese tankers transferring oil to North Korean ships 30 times in three months - despite strict UN trade embargoes, it has been claimed. One picture (above), reportedly taken on October 19, shows a ship called Ryesonggang 1 connected to a Chinese vessel in the West Sea off China
The Chosun Ilbo said the activity appeared to show attempts to bypass sanctions, although the report suggested that Chinese authorities were aware of the large transactions.
Cai Jian, an expert on North Korea at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the Telegraph, 'This is a natural outcome of the tightening of the various sanctions against North Korea.'
The tightening 'reflects China's stance,' the professor of political science at the Pusan National University in South Korea told the Telegraph, saying, 'There is a lot of under-the-radar on the Chinese side.
'Beijing does not police the border strictly or enforce the sanctions toughly. This could be that,' he added.
.
The allegations came a day after Chinese customs insisted that Beijing exported no oil products to North Korea in November.
Those figures go above and beyond sanctions imposed earlier this year by the United Nations in a bid to limit petroleum shipments to the isolated country.
Tensions have flared anew over North Korea's illicit nuclear and missile programmes, pursued in defiance of years of U.N. resolutions. Last week, the U.N. Security Council imposed new caps on trade with North Korea, including limiting oil product shipments to just 500,000 barrels a year.
Beijing also imported no iron ore, coal or lead from North Korea in November, the second full month of the latest trade sanctions imposed by U.N.
China, the main source of North Korea's fuel, did not export any gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or fuel oil to its isolated neighbor last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday.
+6
Sanctions have been placed on Kim Jong-un's secretive nation after he accelerated his nuclear and missile programmes
November was the second straight month China exported no diesel or gasoline to North Korea. The last time China's jet fuel shipments to Pyongyang were at zero was in February 2015.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she didn't know any details about the oil products export situation.
'As a principle, China has consistently fully, correctly, conscientiously and strictly enforced relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. We have already established a set of effective operating mechanisms and methods,' she said at a regular briefing on Tuesday, without elaborating.
Since June, state-run China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has suspended sales of gasoline and diesel to North Korea, concerned that it would not get paid for its goods, Reuters previously reported.
Beijing's move to turn off the taps completely is rare.
In March 2003, China suspended oil supplies to North Korea for three days after Pyongyang fired a missile into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
It is unknown if China still sells crude oil to Pyongyang. Beijing has not disclosed its crude exports to North Korea for several years.
Industry sources say China still supplies about 520,000 tonnes, or 3.8 million barrels, of crude a year to North Korea via an aging pipeline. That is a little more than 10,000 barrels a day, and worth about $200 million a year at current prices.
North Korea also sources some of its oil from Russia.
.
Those figures go above and beyond sanctions imposed earlier this year by the United Nations in a bid to limit petroleum shipments to the isolated country.
Tensions have flared anew over North Korea's illicit nuclear and missile programmes, pursued in defiance of years of U.N. resolutions. Last week, the U.N. Security Council imposed new caps on trade with North Korea, including limiting oil product shipments to just 500,000 barrels a year.
Beijing also imported no iron ore, coal or lead from North Korea in November, the second full month of the latest trade sanctions imposed by U.N.
China, the main source of North Korea's fuel, did not export any gasoline, jet fuel, diesel or fuel oil to its isolated neighbor last month, data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Tuesday.
+6
Sanctions have been placed on Kim Jong-un's secretive nation after he accelerated his nuclear and missile programmes
November was the second straight month China exported no diesel or gasoline to North Korea. The last time China's jet fuel shipments to Pyongyang were at zero was in February 2015.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she didn't know any details about the oil products export situation.
'As a principle, China has consistently fully, correctly, conscientiously and strictly enforced relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions on North Korea. We have already established a set of effective operating mechanisms and methods,' she said at a regular briefing on Tuesday, without elaborating.
Since June, state-run China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has suspended sales of gasoline and diesel to North Korea, concerned that it would not get paid for its goods, Reuters previously reported.
Beijing's move to turn off the taps completely is rare.
In March 2003, China suspended oil supplies to North Korea for three days after Pyongyang fired a missile into waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
It is unknown if China still sells crude oil to Pyongyang. Beijing has not disclosed its crude exports to North Korea for several years.
Industry sources say China still supplies about 520,000 tonnes, or 3.8 million barrels, of crude a year to North Korea via an aging pipeline. That is a little more than 10,000 barrels a day, and worth about $200 million a year at current prices.
North Korea also sources some of its oil from Russia.
.
Chinese exports of corn to North Korean in November also slumped, down 82 percent from a year earlier to 100 tonnes, the lowest since January. Exports of rice plunged 64 percent to 672 tonnes, the lowest since March.
Trade between North Korea and China has slowed through the year, particularly after China banned coal purchases in February. In November, China's trade with North Korea totaled $388 million, one of the lowest monthly volumes this year.
China has renewed its call on all countries to make constructive efforts to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, urging the use of peaceful means to resolve issues.
But tensions flared again after North Korea on Nov. 29 said it had tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile Chinese exports of liquefied petroleum gas to North Korea, used for cooking, rose 58 percent in November from a year earlier to 99 tonnes. Exports of ethanol, which can be turned into a biofuel, gained 82 percent to 3,428 cubic metres.
Read more:
.
Trade between North Korea and China has slowed through the year, particularly after China banned coal purchases in February. In November, China's trade with North Korea totaled $388 million, one of the lowest monthly volumes this year.
China has renewed its call on all countries to make constructive efforts to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, urging the use of peaceful means to resolve issues.
But tensions flared again after North Korea on Nov. 29 said it had tested a new intercontinental ballistic missile that put the U.S. mainland within range of its nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile Chinese exports of liquefied petroleum gas to North Korea, used for cooking, rose 58 percent in November from a year earlier to 99 tonnes. Exports of ethanol, which can be turned into a biofuel, gained 82 percent to 3,428 cubic metres.
Read more:
.
