Here is how Pyongyang might make some much-needed cash.
Previously, the regime has traded off its nuclear ambitions in return for international economic aid. The estimated $10 trillion in resource wealth could fund “several more generations of leaders called Kim,” as the Guardian puts it.
With China accounting for an estimated 90 percent of North Korea’s international trade, the sanctions are set to bite on one of the regime’s last major remaining sources of cash.
“There are very limited ways for North Korea to make money: selling weapons, smuggling and mining,” according to Choi Kyung-soo, president of the North Korea Resources Institute in Seoul.
“Because of sanctions, it’s very hard for them to make weapons or to sell [narcotic] drugs, so the only legitimate way for North Korea to make money these days is from selling minerals.”
