In a novel effort that targets the lifestyle of North Korea's eccentric leader, the Bush administration wants to make it tougher for him to buy iPods, plasma TV sets, Segway electric scooters and more.
It is Washington's first-ever attempt to use trade penalties as a way to aggravate a single person. They target items believed to be favored by Kim Jong-il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run North Korea's government.
Kim has other options for obtaining high-end consumer electronics and other luxuries.
But the list of proposed US penalties aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles, even personal watercraft such as Jet Skis.
The ban would extend to musical instruments and sports equipment. The 1.6m tall Kim is an enthusiastic basketball fan -- former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright presented him with a ball signed by retired superstar Michael Jordan during a diplomatic trip in 2000. Kim's former secretary, widely believed to be his new wife, studied piano at Pyongyang University of Music and Dance.
"While North Korea's people starve and suffer, there is simply no excuse for the regime to be splurging on cognac and cigars," US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said on Wednesday in a statement.
"We will ban the export of these and other luxury goods that are purchased for no other reason than to benefit North Korea's governing elite," he said.
Gutierrez said penalized items were "carefully considered and carefully targeted."
Experts said the US luxury sanctions would be the first ever to curtail a specific category of goods not associated with military buildups or weapons designs as well as the first tailored for a foreign dignitary. They acknowledge that enforcing the ban on black-market trading would be difficult.
"He's got folks who can move around nuclear weapons. If he tells these guys to get him a case of Scotch, they're going to pull it off," James Lewis, a former State Department official who worked on arms control, said.
"Unless it's too large to fit into the cargo hold of a commercial aircraft, it's going to be tough to restrain him," he said.
"It's a new concept. It's kind of creative," William Reinsch, a former senior Commerce Department official who oversaw trade restrictions with the Northa under president Bill Clinton, said.
Practically, few US companies ship anything to North Korea. US exports amounted to only US$5.8 million last year. Nearly all of it was food. Although the new penalties would cover "personal digital music players," such as iPods, Microsoft Corp. said its new Zune handheld player was never intended for sales overseas.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, trade group for the liquor industry, said it supports the administration's policies toward North Korea.
The Washington-based Personal Watercraft Industry Association said it also supports the penalties, although it bristled at suggestions a Jet Ski was a luxury item.
"The thousands of Americans and Canadians who build, ship and sell personal watercraft are patriots first," Maureen Healey, head of the trade group, said.
She said it endorsed the ban "because of the narrow nature of this ban and the genuine dangers that responsible world governments are trying to stave off."
Defectors to South Korea have described Kim giving expensive gifts of cars, liquor and Japanese-made appliances to his most faithful bureaucrats.
The US submitted its proposals to the UN, which is coordinating the ban on luxury goods. Japan included beef, caviar and fatty tuna, along with expensive cars, motorcycles, cameras and more. Many European nations are working on their lists.
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