South Korea Looks At Boycotting Companies Doing Business With North Korea

It just makes you wonder why action wasn’t taken against companies doing business with North Korea a long time ago?:

The option to impose a secondary boycott, which penalizes foreign companies trading with a target country, will be a very effective tool if it is imposed on North Korea for its latest nuclear test, a senior foreign ministry official said Friday.

“There’s a so-called secondary boycott which has not been mobilized yet,” Vice Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said during his televised interview with Yonhap News TV, the broadcasting affiliate of Yonhap News Agency.

He was discussing what punitive actions remain available to use against North Korea, as the international community is working toward adopting another round of sanctions in response to the country’s fifth nuclear test on Sept. 9.

The secondary boycott, if adopted, would target any foreign companies that transact with North Korea, pushing the communist country further into isolation from the international economy.

If used, the approach would have the biggest influence on companies in China, by far Pyongyang’s No. 1 trading partner.

“If this is applied, it would have very significant impact … the U.S. may consider applying a secondary boycott if they judge North Korea’s nuclear program cannot be stopped without using it,” Cho noted.  [Yonhap]

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