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THREAD: When I was sworn in to the Senate in 2015, I referred to Kim Jong Un as the “Forgotten Maniac”. At the time, few were paying attention to the grave threat posed by NK to the US and our allies, while the Obama Admin. followed a failing policy of “strategic patience”. 1/11
As Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee focused on East Asia policy, I held a series of hearings and began working on legislation that would require mandatory sanctions on the regime and would set parameters for U.S. policy toward North Korea. 2/11
This legislation, the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, was signed into law in February 2016. It now forms the basis of the maximum pressure campaign against North Korea. The law sets a high bar for any lifting of sanctions on North Korea. See below. 3/11pic.twitter.com/H1MUWHygI4
Per U.S. law, the President must demand that NK make significant progress toward complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization & comply with all UN Security Council Resolutions before any sanctions relief or normalization of relations with NK can be considered. 4/11
But we haven’t received any of these commitments from North Korea to date. 5/11
The maximum pressure campaign that my legislation started, and President Trump has continued, has brought us to this point today. Now we need to keep up the pressure and negotiate from a position of strength. 6/11
My new bipartisan bill, the LEED Act, would impose an economic embargo on North Korea and its enablers, wherever they are based. You can read more about it here: https://www.gardner.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/gardner-markey-introduce-expanded-north-korea-policy-and-sanctions-legislation … 7/11
As a starting point for any negotiations, we must demand that the regime adheres to the commitments it has already made to the United States to denuclearize, and has since repeatedly violated. 8/11
In the meantime, as I wrote in my letter yesterday with my colleagues on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committee, sanctions and joint military exercises w/ our allies must continue. https://www.gardner.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/gardner-urges-president-trump-to-continue-maximum-pressure-campaign-on-north-korea … 9/11
Kim Jong Un must know that we will not hesitate to protect the U.S. homeland, our troops in the region, and our treaty allies, with overwhelming military force, if necessary. 10/11
We must verify BEFORE we trust. The stakes are high. @POTUS can change the course of history, but it must be done through a position of strength and be consistent with long-standing U.S. policy and national security goals. 11/11
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