[USFK Forums] US-North Korea Trade Dwindles To Early 1990s Level: Bureau [Asia Pulse]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Tuesday January 17, 11:19 AM

US-North Korea Trade Dwindles To Early 1990s Level: Bureau

WASHINGTON, Jan 17 Asia Pulse - Trade activities between the United States and North Korea were reduced to the level of a decade ago after a remarkable surge following a bilateral nuclear agreement, the latest statistics indicated Sunday.

Foreign trade statistics obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau showed U.S. exports to the communist country grew from US$200,000 in 1994 to $11.3 million in 1999.

However, the figure plunged to $2.7 million in 2000 and $700,000 in 2001. As of last November, U.S. exports to the North were tallied at $5.8 million.

There were upward fluctuations between 2001 and last year, with U.S. exports to North Korea rising to $25 million in 2002 and $23 million in 2004. But according to the Census Bureau analysis, most of those exports were "charity shipments."

"In 2002, U.S. exports to North Korea totaled $25 million, vast majority of which were in the form of cereals (60 per cent) and animal/vegetable fats (20 per cent)," it said.

The breakdown for 2004 also showed most of the exports to be cereals, such as wheat and corn, as well as dairy products.

The U.S. imposed a total embargo on trade with the North in June 1950 when North Korea invaded South Korea and sparked a three-year fratricidal war.

The embargo has been lifted in phases since 1989, but the most notable removal of sanctions came in June 2000, when South and North Korean leaders held a summit for the first time since the national division.

The year 1994 was also a pivotal year in U.S.-North Korea relations with the signing in October of the Agreed Framework, in which Pyongyang agreed to freeze its nuclear activities in exchange for a U.S. commitment to supply energy and light-water reactors.

The agreement fell apart in late 2002 with U.S. accusations that North Korea was developing another secret nuclear weapons program using enriched uranium.

These years also coincided with massive international emergency food aid to North Korea, which has been suffering from chronic food shortages from the mid-1990s due to repeated droughts and floods.

Census Bureau statistics record the first imports from North Korea in 2000 at $154,000 for items listed as "artwork, antiques, stamps and other collectibles." The imports dwindled to $26,000 in 2001 and rose to $74,000 in 2002 with purchases listed as apparel, textile and household goods.

They jumped to $1.5 million in 2004, almost all of it for buying "medicinal, dental and pharmaceutical preparations," according to the statistics.

Most U.S. exports to North Korea were made up of wheat, rice, corn, dairy products, vegetables and unmanufactured agricultural industry products.

Some of the notable items included "newsprint" amounting to $244,000 in 2002, and "pharmaceutical preparations" totaling $508,000 in 2001 and $1.28 million in 2003.

The U.S. also steadily recorded "miscellaneous domestic exports and special transactions" between 2000 and 2003, amounting to as much as $641,000 in 2002.

More details on the last figures were not immediately available.



(Yonhap)