U.S. Lifts Some Sanctions Against N. Korea, Stops Calling It ‘Rogue’

The United States on Monday lifted an array of economic sanctions against North Korea in one of the most far-reaching steps the U.S. government has taken toward ending half a century of hostility between the two nations.

But the isolated Communist state’s desperate economic straits will limit any significant commerce with the United States in the near future, experts on Asian commerce and North Korea said.

As a result of the shift in a policy in place since 1950, the United States will allow its airlines to fly to North Korea, American companies to sell their goods there, U.S. ships to call on North Korean ports, and Americans to purchase North Korean raw materials and finished products. U.S. financial investments in North Korea will also be permitted.

But the practical impact is likely to be much less grand: North Korea, often unable even to feed its people, lacks the financial wherewithal to buy the most basic American goods and is far from obtaining the international support it needs to enter the global marketplace. With a population of 21 million, its gross domestic product was $21.8 billion in 1998; by comparison, the economy of South Korea, where the population is more than twice as large, was 25 times greater.

Nevertheless, the symbolic value of the Clinton administration’s decision went far beyond its limited economic impact, and in another symbolic way Monday the administration moved to further lessen the North’s isolation.

For years, North Korea, along with Iran and Libya, was known within government circles as a “rogue” state, a designation lacking official standing but conveying the deep disdain, bordering on fear, in which those nations were held.

But, said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, “we have seen some evolution in different ways in different places,” suggesting that these countries are no longer quite the rogues the designation implied.

So, the department announced Monday, the countries will now be known as “states of concern.”

“We are concerned about their support for terrorist activities, their development of missiles, their desire to disrupt the international system,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said on National Public Radio’s “Diane Rehm Show,” explaining the altered designation.

The new economic and diplomatic course the United States is following in North Korea was presaged in 1994 when the two nations established a framework for easing tensions. The framework brought a freeze in the North’s nuclear weapons program in exchange for U.S. oil supplies and a promise of help in building two nuclear reactors.

The shift was forecast specifically in September, when President Clinton directed government officials to take the initial steps needed to lift the sanctions.

The economic restrictions were imposed 50 years ago at the start of the Korean War, when Communist troops invaded South Korea.

When added to North Korea’s own self-isolating measures, parallel sanctions imposed by U.S. allies and the collapse of the Soviet Union--the North’s only major benefactor--the result of the sanctions was the creation of a reclusive nation far less advanced than even Vietnam, its struggling and once-divided Asian neighbor to the south.

Even a step long on symbolism--if short on immediate practical impact--can therefore have significant effect.

As Patrick Cronin, director of research at the U.S. Institute for Peace, put it, “When you’re such a recluse, simply coming out and smiling for the cameras changes the dynamic.”

Beyond that, he said, the U.S. announcement serves to endorse similar openings by others.

“We give a green light for South Korea to pursue its opening, and for Japan to get into the fray, and for Canada and Australia and the Philippines,” Cronin said, even if “United Airlines and Northwest aren’t clamoring for routes to [the North Korean capital,] Pyongyang.”

In recent years, the Stalinist state has been moving cautiously to shed some of its isolation. It has opened normal diplomatic relations with Australia and Italy and begun talks with Japan about doing the same. Last week, in a historic summit, it welcomed South Korean President Kim Dae Jung to Pyongyang.

The White House decision was disclosed Monday morning in an announcement printed in the Federal Register that belied the move’s diplomatic heft.

Boucher said the removal of the sanctions will permit the import and export of nonsensitive consumer goods. Restrictions associated with North Korea’s designation as a nation that supports terrorism will remain in effect, barring trade in military goods and technology that can have military uses.

Clinton used the occasion of the announcement to remind Pyongyang that its moratorium on a missile-testing program was a central element in the decision.

Referring to the North’s adherence to the moratorium and last week’s summit in Pyongyang, the president said in a written statement: “We will continue to build on these efforts and on the recent North-South summit to achieve additional progress in addressing our common proliferation concerns.”