international community to force him to do what he doesn t want to do. what do you do? you have to make him realize if he doesn t give up the weapons he ll lose way to do tht is further cut off the flow of money to north korea. we ve seen over the last year an upped sanctions enforcement and that s meant that for instance the south koreans are saying kim is going to run out of foreign currency reserves by october. that s a little bit too dire, but nonetheless it shows that kim is at a point where he won t have money to launch missiles, detonate nukes or engage in gift politics, engaging in luxury items to buy the loyalty of rethe regime. the only way he feels he can maintain power right now and ensure the fact that north korea is not invaded is by having this nuclear arsenal, and there s no other way that he would have confidence that he would be able to maintain that power. i mean, what is it that moon jae-in could say, that president trump could say to give him the
a much longer, tougher process. so, gordon, what was the role of china versus donald trump? when you say that president trump helped break the deadlock with the sanctions, can you just explain to us what he did that obama hadn t done or people in the past, presidents in the past? i don t quite understand president trump s relationship with xi jinping. if you look back two years, alysin, china s sanctions enforcement is much improved. there is a world of difference. but if you look at the last two months, china has markedly busted sanctions and they ve done so publicly. so for instance when kim jong-un went to beijing at the end of last month, chinese state media allowed pictures being taken of all of the gifts that xi jinping gave to kim. that s violation of u.n. sanctions. that s basically $394,000 worth of jewelry and pours lanrcelain the u.n. just said is completely sanctioned. now, the problem here, though, is if we are able to end up with
helicopter base from which the most recent attack was launched. this is proportionate. it s low risk. there s no change to the military mission in syria. it also has a low deterrence value. it will not do much to change the situation on the ground. next the pin cushion ideas, a little bit more expanded options. also more high risk. you could do expanded strikes against other syrian targets, even russian targets. you could do no-fly zones although the time for that is past. now the regime has much more control over the country and better air defenses in place. you can do a more bold sanctions enforcement, putting navy ships off the coast. you certainly would need russia s cooperation and that s not likely to happen. and of course you could do full-scale intervention with regime change as the ultimate goal but, again, that risk a much bigger conflagration of war in syria.
diplomacy. thanks for joining us. after that meeting between kim and president xi trump tweeted he is hopeful about denuclearization on the korean peninsula. is china asserting itself as a central player in these negotiations? china is. but here s the thing. at what point between vice president mike pence s visit to south korea for the olympic games for the opening ceremony, the games held in south korea in early february and the invitation by kim, his proposition for a summit meeting to president trump in early march did north korea s intentions go from fake or a charade as mr. pence called it to a genuine offer of denuclearization. denuclearization will not take place in the kim regime is presented with a specter of an imminent renl eem collapse. it took the obama administration five years of tough sanctions
i think in anybody s book an attack on north korea, a first attack, a preventative war attack constitutes an act of war which is contemplated under the congressional authorities within our constitution. we can argue about other cases, but this seems to be a very clearcut case. you have two state actors south korea and north korea. you would have a preventative strike on north korea. so we should be focused on trying to make sure we maximize our pressure, especially economic pressure, on north korea. i don t think this administration has exhausted the sanctions enforcement which is why senator tumey and i introduced legislation on the floor of the senate to ratchet on firms in china and elsewhere who are facilitating the north koreans. the vice president mike pence is leaving washington today to represent the united states at the winter olympics in south korea beginning later in the