Ted Cruz: Ending North Korea Threat Requires Confronting 'Nefarious Regimes'

WASHINGTON, DC – Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said on Wednesday that ending North Korea’s nuclear capabilities requires confronting nation-states that are enabling the communist regime to survive sanctions by providing resources, especially China.

“Nefarious regimes, including China and Russia and Iran and Cuba, as well as governments with weak export controls, bankrolled North Korea’s nuclear pursuits,” Cruz said in remarks made at the Hudson Institute in Washington, DC.

“We don’t need a new law to target these enemies,” Cruz said. “We simply need resolve and belief in American power defending American interests with a clear-eyed understanding of these offenders — especially China.”

“Recent reports of Chinese vessels violating sanctions by selling oil to North Korea on the high seas only reinforces my long-held skepticism of Beijing’s empty promises,” Cruz said.

Cruz also cited China’s economic threats to South Korea and the United States over the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile system being deployed on the peninsula — a move Cruz said is a necessity for South Korean security.

“This should serve as a prelude to further missile defense batteries on the peninsula,” Cruz said. “China must understand that should our ally South Korea desire more defenses, we will no longer tolerate their financial intimidation.”

Cruz praised President Donald Trump in his remarks, which focused on the U.S. response to North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Cruz said the president was correct in his decision to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terror, a status former President George W. Bush removed in 2008 for diplomatic purposes.

“I think, with the new administration, we have a far more clear-eyed assessment of our adversaries and a willingness to exercise U.S. force–whether economic force, whether diplomatic force,” Cruz said.

“There are all sorts of ways to exercise American power short of sending in the Marines,” Cruz said.

Cruz reiterated the role China and other nation-states play in easing the effect of sanctions placed on North Korea. He cited an Institute for Science and International Security report that identified 49 countries responsible for enabling sanctions violations.

“What has enabled North Korea to skirt a lot of these sanctions is willing partners who are complicit in skirting the sanctions,” Cruz said.

In a recent editorial published in the Washington Post, Cruz said the change in policy toward North Korea puts the United States in a more advantageous position.

“We’ve spent nearly three decades wondering what North Korea would do next,” Cruz wrote. “It’s time for North Korea to fear what America will do next.”