House votes to squeeze Pyongyang’s purse

House lawmakers voted 419-1 today to impose new sanctions on North Korea aimed at thwarting the totalitarian regime’s ability to develop nuclear weapons. The bipartisan bill now heads to the Senate for its approval. The sanctions would block ships from North Korea and countries that ignore United Nations resolutions against it from docking at U.S. ports. It also would ban imports from countries that employ North Korean workers, who send their wages back to Pyongyang. Those foreign workers provide billions of dollars in hard currency for the already isolated country. “This is money that Kim Jong-un uses to advance his nuclear and missile program, and also pay his generals, buying their loyalty to his brutal regime,” said House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif. “That is what the high-level defectors that I meet with say. So let’s squeeze his purse.” U.S. military experts believe North Korea will eventually find a way to build a missile that can carry a nuclear warhead to U.S. soil.