It’s perhaps too late to check North Korean missile program

It may already be too late for sanctions to halt North Korea’s missile program.
That’s the view of analysts who have watched Kim Jong Un accelerate progress on North Korea’s decades-long quest for a functioning intercontinental ballistic missile. Friday’s launch, the second in a matter of weeks, showed it’s just a matter of time before he has a full-fledged ICBM that could hit any part of the US with a nuclear weapon.
As North Korea’s economy holds up, and the regime moves beyond the startup costs of its nuclear program, efforts to choke off its finances become less effective, the analysts say.
That leaves US President Donald Trump with limited options. A military strike could have devastating consequences for the Korean peninsula. At the same time the US is loath to make the concessions that Kim demands to get him to the negotiating table.
“No amount of sanctions will stop Kim Jong Un from having his ICBM,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor of Korean studies at Kookmin University in Seoul, who has written several books on North Korea. “As long as the Kim family stays in power —and they’re likely to stay in power for a long time—denuclearization is not possible. Period.”
The US has said it won’t call another meeting of the United Nations Security Council after the latest missile test, with Ambassador Nikki Haley saying another resolution would be pointless. The US and Japan both blame China and Russia—veto-wielding members of the Security Council that oppose more sanctions—for propping up Kim’s regime.
Trump, who blasted China on Twitter for doing “NOTHING” on North Korea, is considering trade restrictions and sanctions against the world’s second-biggest economy, Politico reported on Monday. In June, his administration sanctioned a regional Chinese bank, a shipping company and two Chinese citizens over dealings with North Korea.
The US president is keeping “all options on the table” when it comes to North Korea, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Tuesday at a briefing. Still, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged continued “peaceful pressure” on Pyongyang, telling reporters the US goal isn’t to topple Kim’s regime or find “an excuse to send our military north.”
China fears a collapse of Kim’s regime could lead to a refugee crisis and U.S. troops on its border. Even though
relations between the neighbors have been frosty of late, China still accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea’s
total trade.