Trump Can’t Even Implement His Own North Korea Sanctions

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The Trump administration is urging the rest of the world to sanction North Korea harshly in response to their recent missile launches and nuclear tests. There’s only one problem:

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said Monday that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, is “begging for war,’’ and called for members to exhaust all possible diplomatic measures and impose urgent economic sanctions to prevent it.

….The Trump administration is also moving to cut off from the international financial system Chinese banks and trading companies that supply Pyongyang, however, those cases are moving slowly because of the hiring freeze at the State Department and personnel shortages at the Justice and Treasury departments, according to Stanton. “The government has made some of the right policy decisions, at least in sanctions, but they are not putting enough people on task,’’ he said.

Typical Trump. He’s too incompetent to implement even policies that are straightforward and have broad bipartisan support. This is, simultaneously, my greatest hope and my greatest fear for the next three years.

DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do things differently in the aftermath of a political crisis: Watergate. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after, and go deep on, stories others don’t. And we’re a nonprofit newsroom because we knew corporations and billionaires would never fund the journalism we do. Our reporting makes a difference in policies and people’s lives changed.

And we need your support like never before to vigorously fight back against the existential threats American democracy and journalism face. We’re running behind our online fundraising targets and urgently need all hands on deck right now. We can’t afford to come up short—we have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

Please help with a donation today if you can—even just a few bucks helps. Not ready to donate but interested in our work? Sign up for our Daily newsletter to stay well-informed—and see what makes our people-powered, not profit-driven, journalism special.

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