Setting an example

By John Burton

President Moon Jae-in has apparently recognized that humanitarian aid is a good means to help revive stalled talks on North Korea's nuclear program. Last week, Seoul announced that it would provide 50,000 tons of rice to North Korea as that country faces a looming food shortage this summer. It was the first such planned shipment of rice by South Korea since 2010, when it sent 5,000 tons.

This follows an $8 million donation by Seoul earlier in June to two U.N. agencies, the World Food Program and UNICEF, to help feed North Koreans and provide prenatal care. Moon had previously pledged the money in September 2017, but had then delayed its disbursement when Pyongyang conducted missile and nuclear tests shortly thereafter.

The delivery of 50,000 tons of rice still falls far short of the total food aid that North Korea will need this year. The U.N. recently estimated that the country will require imports of nearly 1.4 million tons of food to adequately feed the population. Seoul suggested that it would offer more food aid after reviewing "the results of this round of support."

South Korea's sudden burst of humanitarian assistance to North Korea comes at a crucial time and may lend support to other efforts to persuade Pyongyang to restart nuclear talks with the U.S.

Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Pyongyang last week is viewed as possibly an attempt by Beijing to persuade North Korea to resume negotiations with the U.S. after summit talks in Hanoi collapsed in February.

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Food aid could also help bolster the position of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at home when he appears to be under attack by military hardliners for failing to show concrete results after curbing nuclear and long-range missile tests over the past 18 months.

Moon, who did much to mediate the start of U.S.-North Korean talks last year, should now urge U.S. President Donald Trump to follow his example in using humanitarian aid as a trust-building measure when the two leaders meet in Seoul at the end of this month.

Although Trump has kept the door open to renewed talks with Kim, including sending him what Pyongyang described as an "excellent" letter over the weekend, he has done little to ease restrictions or alter U.S. policy on humanitarian aid to North Korea.

The U.S. has largely neglected the issue of humanitarian aid to North Korea over the last 10 years as Pyongyang escalated its nuclear and missile activity.

Under Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, the U.S. largely ignored help to North Korea under his policy of "strategic patience," although U.N. sanctions do not prohibit humanitarian aid to Pyongyang.

Only twice during his eight years in office did Obama agree to offer humanitarian aid to North Korea. In 2011, he authorized the delivery of $900,000 in relief supplies, including medicine, after North Korea suffered massive flooding. On its last day in office in January 2017, the Obama administration agreed to donate $1 million to UNICEF to care for victims suffering from the aftermath of a destructive typhoon in August 2016.

After the Trump administration came to office in 2017, it placed further restrictions on private-sector humanitarian aid as part of its "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions against Pyongyang.

Although the Trump administration allowed U.S.-based charities to deliver food and medicine in line with U.N. policy, it imposed a strict licensing process for all other materials that might be sent to North Korea, including plastic sheeting for agricultural projects and medical syringes. It also required U.S. aid workers to apply for special travel permits to North Korea, which were sometimes denied.

U.S. charities that have long experience in working in North Korea, such as the American Friends Service Committee and World Vision, have complained that the Trump-era restrictions have severely disrupted their activities there. The licensing process can take as long as 18 months before aid supplies are delivered, while forcing the charities to hire expensive legal assistance to help manage a complex bureaucratic maze.

Now that Trump has abandoned his "fire and fury" phase on North Korea, during which these restrictions were introduced, it might be an appropriate time to ease them. Stephen Biegun, the U.S. special envoy to North Korea, has been lobbying within the Trump administration for their removal, but the affected charities believe that it might take another year for that to be accomplished.

Trump could follow Moon's lead on humanitarian aid by directly intervening to help accelerate the abolition of the restrictions. More importantly, he should resume official U.S. humanitarian assistance to North Korea, which amounted to $1.3 billion between 1995 and 2008, as a goodwill gesture to encourage Kim to keep the denuclearization process on track.

John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.