Can't wait to see Kim and his sanctions evading limos purring onto the grounds of Trump's Mar-a-Lago for yet another love fest summit with the Prez. Precious.
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One has to laugh when looks at the photographs,.........the "body guards" protecting the Mercedes and content.....one could not make this stuff up.
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What no Hyundai or Genesis from South Korea!
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North Korea has 30-60 nukes that we know about. It is continuing to make more, and to import machinery with which it can make even more. It has missiles capable of hitting St. Louis or Richmond, and possibly farther.
Trump's not just good with that, he's in LOVE.
Note that under international law the limousines are classified as outlaw goods, subject to seizure anywhere by any government. With Trump sucking up to Kim, that seems unlikely.
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But if this can easily be traced why not stop the ship and seize it's contents at some point along it's route? Obviously, it's because some loopholes in the sanctions are desired in the sanctioning nations. The truth is no one wants the Kim regime to topple because the aftermath could be catastrophic to South Korea, Japan, China and Russia.
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Why would anyone be surprised? Kim won't drive around in a used Kia. Even a brutal autocrat who has no problem killing people will always find someone who will take his money to circumvent economic sanctions. It's more worrying what else Kim and his regime have been able to buy, such as rocket technology needed for long-range missiles, especially guidance systems and engines. Those are really difficult to develop and build, and the available offerings of large rocket engines are currently 90% Russian ( the US uses them, too). I wonder how many of those were on those ships and airplanes that made their way to North Korea.
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He bought them via AliBaba.
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Kim Jong-Un is using Trump's ridiculous diplomatic shows to circumvent current sanctions. That is the consequence of having a foreign policy mainly consisting of red herrings.
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@Ulrich Pototschnig Except this has been happening way before Trump...
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This was a time for elves. The elves could have slipped into the containers with the luxury cars and swapped them out for lesser models. Imagine Kim's delight if two very used Pintos had rolled out. Don't get rear ended Supreme Leader or you might face some fire and fury.
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President Trump had a chance to confiscate the sedan in Vietnam and the Kim would have to take a taxi back.
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Luxury goods. . .Kim enjoys 'the good life'. Trump-Pence and their supporters are beyond ignorant about human behavior in their belief that Kim would launch is private nation into a large scale war. . .conventional or nuclear. Kim has, again, shown all that he is not stupid; as such he is keenly aware that he will lose any large scale war.
It would be best to forget about this petty dictator;s drive for nuclear weapons, and simply ignore him. All the free publicity Trump-Pence give to him serves only to further inflate Kim's ego and raise NoKo's image amongst other southeast Asian dictatorships. (It also inflates Trump's ego and fuels the ignorant belief Trump is making peace with NoKo.)
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Daimler says it’s unclear who first purchased the cars. Huh? Then we have Hong Kong incorporation, a South Korean port stop. Followed by week’s of going-dark ocean travel. And a who owns what ship, when, tangle.
A family here is nearly killed by police for shoplifting a few items. If I buy an expensive item with an electronic tag attached, it explodes with....ink ...if not removed properly. Cameras everywhere track us, Internet sites track our every view, visit.
Yet Daimler can’t find a purchaser, we can’t find corporate owners, track dark shipping, in real time??
We ordinary chumps have lost our privacy- when are these corporate globe trotters going to lose theirs? And when are these sanction-prohibited items going to....explode with ink....the minute a tracking device goes dark?
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Money trumps everything.
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The originator of the sale and the original owner should be held accountable. This would help staunch the flow of goods that aim to subvert trade bans.
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Ships that go "dark' carrying sanctioned items that end up in outlaw countries need to be confiscated and thereby remove the profits from the illegal transactions. The monies raised from the sale of these ships could be used for humanitarian aid and such.
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