 Good evening everyone. This is Code Pink's what the F is going on in Latin America. This is a special edition this evening. Normally we air every Wednesday at noon time Eastern for 20 minutes of hot news out of Latin America and the Caribbean. This evening we're presenting to you a course on sanctions 101 hoping to get all of you to understand all of you and more to understand us unilateral sanctions how they're used and why they're used. So let me just give a brief introduction as to our guests. And also I should let you know that we're simulcasting tonight with our co host alliance for global justice. American Friends Service Committee Center for Economic Policy and Research, Common Frontiers in Canada, International Action Center, International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity, Korea Peace Now, Task Force on the Americas, and several others. So thank you everyone for joining us. And let me introduce our guests. We're joined this evening by Dr. Key Park, and Kevin Cashman. Dr. Park is a lecturer on global health and social medicine and director of the Korea Health Policy Project at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as director of the North Korea programs at the Korean American Medical Association, and has led over 20 delegations to North Korea since 2007 to work alongside and collaborate with North Korean doctors in the DPRK. He is also a co-author of last fall's report, The Human Costs and Gendered Bias of US Sanctions on North Korea. So welcome, Key. So good to see you again. Thanks, Terry. Good to be here. And Kevin, Dr. Park's joining us from Park City, Utah, yeah. So, Kevin is here with me in Washington DC. Kevin Cashman is a senior associate at the Center for Economic Policy and Research. Some of you may as CEPR, commonly known here in Washington DC, and has written on sanctions on Iran and Venezuela. Last year, CEPR produced the report, Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment, The Case of Venezuela. So we have two gentlemen joining us this evening. We have well researched the issue of sanctions and how they affect populations within those countries who are sanctioned. There are 39 countries under sanctions affecting one third of the world's population right now. So let's start this evening with an introduction by Kevin of what sanctions are, what this tool is, this tool that many people refer to as unilateral coercive measures or unilateral economic sanctions that the United States unilaterally imposes on foreign countries. Let's start with that. And then we'll talk specifically about North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, and then we also will have some conversation about how sanctions on countries are affecting the response to coronavirus, not only for specific populations but for the global population. And then we'll open up the conversation to Q&A for all of you who are listening or watching. So Kevin, let's have you open for us please. Sure. So I'll just try to give a basic overview of what sanctions are and how they work and how the US talks about them generally. So you mentioned they were universal coercive economic or unilateral coercive economic measures. And that is very different, the unilateral part than something that the UN might do where the Security Council has to vote on it and there has to be, you know, broad international agreement. So that's one distinction that makes this a little different. But countries in the modern age are very dependent on one another. Very few countries produce everything that they need for their economy. So they have to import goods. This is especially important in countries that have a very, they don't have a diverse economy. For example, Venezuela, Iran, both export a lot of oil. So that means they might not produce all the food that they need but they use the money that they get from exporting oil to import food. So these international connections are very important for every country but especially countries that need to import goods. So the international economic system is, as probably a lot of people suspect on this webinar, very influenced by US policy. So the US government controls that structure in ways that are very unique. And one of the takeaways I think that is very important for anybody listening to remember is that the US is essentially the only country that can inflict sanctions on other countries without having buy-in from the rest of the world. Other countries just cannot do it. And that's a function of how the US influences the international economic system. In a couple ways, there are, say you have a bank in Iran and you have another bank in, let's say, Bolivia and they want to basically send money back and forth to one another. They need to have essentially banks that are intermediaries and they're called correspondent banks. And that system of correspondent banks make sure that every bank in the world is connected to one another. And the apex of that system is a bank in New York that's subject to US laws that is subject to US influence. And so that's one part of how the international structure is subject to US influence. But there's also the payment systems, the actual infrastructure that was used there, two predominant systems, SWIFT and CHIPS. And SWIFT, for example, might be used between two European banks that never need to go through the US. But if SWIFT actually has an agreement where it provides all information about transactions to the US government. So you might have a situation where Germany wants to, a bank in Germany wants to complete a transaction with the bank in Italy. And because it involves some sort of actor that the US government doesn't like, the US government can basically threaten those banks and say, if you don't want to do, if you want to complete this transaction that's fine but you might not be able to do business with any US bank. So because a lot of these targeted countries, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, are basically have a small percentage of other banks of business, these other banks don't want to do business with these countries or banks in these countries, because it risks the rest of their business. So that's a big incentive to banks and banks are very cognizant of that and you might not even need to threaten them to get them to comply with what you want. And one thing the US could do is provide letters to these banks to say, hey, you can do these kinds of transactions if it involves medicine or humanitarian aid. But the US government doesn't do that very often. So a lot of banks just rather not deal with these countries. So that's a couple of ways where the US influence on how the global economy works essentially cuts these countries off from trade. And when you have a president like Donald Trump that, for example, ramped up sanctions on Iran, you can cut off an entire economy from that system. So countries have to start trying to work around the system and find ways, for example, to sell oil, which they can then use to import the goods that they need. But even those sorts of systems so Iran has been doing a lot of business with China, for example. And that's sort of bilateral, but those relationships can still be threatened by the US government, the State Department sanctions, the captain of an oil tanker was squirming oil to China. And so there are ways that the US can try to disrupt even bilateral trade that avoids the kind of structures I was talking about with Swift and chips. So that's sort of the machinery behind how the US can do this sort of thing. I said other countries can't don't have that ability they might be able to prevent transactions in their own country, but the US can prevent transactions between third parties. So that's a very important distinction. I would just say that also the justifications the US use for this. It's been very revealing in the Trump administration to see Trump himself say, we're trying to punish this economy we're trying to basically put pressure on the government because he's exactly right. The point is to cross suffering is to possibly end up and basically put pressure on the government. We know that it doesn't work. So we're basically the US government I should say is basically punishing civilians for preferred foreign policy goals. So that's, that's something that is the corrective punishment of the population for these foreign policy goals. And there are a lot of excuses that somebody other people in the administration might use they say sanctions are targeted or they say that they don't exempt. They exempt humanitarian aid, but when people try to take advantage of those exemptions. They very rarely work because banks are too afraid to use them or the government says we approve some military exemptions but not these ones because these products might be used by the military here we might be used by somebody that we put on a targeted list or something and another thing that is important to keep in mind is even if there are humanitarian exemptions if an economy is completely wrecked by sanctions, a government might not even have the money to import humanitarian supplies. So if, for example, somebody lost their job, then they can't pay to go to the doctor in us. It's the same with Iran if we tank Iran's economy. Even if they're a humanitarian exemptions Iran doesn't have the money to go and buy masks, it doesn't have the money to go and buy medicine. And so there are various ways that these sanctions are rationalized. Trump doesn't tend to rationalize in that way which is very revealing but others in his administration do. But it sort of shows you that these sanctions are designed to input pain. And that's because they're used to further US foreign policy. Kevin I wonder if you can give us a few examples of this with individuals and organizations that are quote unquote sanctioned. Because my understanding is that's where it starts. And also, and that but that's not how it plays out in reality as you just explained because of the international banking system and being able to participate being able to participate in the global economy. Last week, I believe Michelle bachelor may said, made a statement about the use of sanctions and use the term over compliance by international financial institutions and that it was said over compliance of financial institutions that was causing the greatest harm. Sure, so the other compliance is sort of what I was saying about it, you know, if Iran is 5% you know max of your banks business then in 95% of your businesses with European or US banks. Why would you risk 95% of your business to do humanitarian transactions with Iran that might be not subject to the sanctions but you still might draw the US government's attention to what you're doing. So that's sort of over compliance and unwillingness to want to even, you know, have any sort of business with these sanctioned countries is a big problem. And like you said there's also this, this ever expanding list of people who are targeted by these sanctions and you know, Pence or Trump, or other people in the administration will say, you know, these are bad people. You know, if you're sanctioning the Minister of Finance, they have responsibilities to sign off on transactions and that actually becomes a big problem, just to can do, you know, ordinary transactions that banks need to do. So they try to explain it away and say, you know, we're sanctioning bad people we have these humanitarian exemptions. So the effect of that is that, you know, the humanitarian exemptions are almost never used or very rarely used, and the list of people become so much so that the government needs to find workarounds just to, you know, complete ordinary business. Before we move to North Korea specifically I want to just say one thing with you Kevin I and the, and the audience that need that people need to clearly understand is the dominance of the US dollar. And that is a big factor in how the US is able to control what the banks do and what other countries do, but also you've done that you and your organization created this report last year on on. The collective impact collective punishment on Venezuela. And one thing I would just like to share with the audience to, to explain how this works is that when I was there a couple years ago, and I go go about once a year. The government was trying to purchase an import insulin for it for its medical system, and they I believe if I'm if I'm incorrect someone text me and correct me. So, I believe the insulin at that time was being purchased from a German pharmaceutical company, the Venezuelan government places the order. It wires the money to the German bank. The German bank in its over compliance says, you know, no, we're not going to transfer the payments to the pharmaceutical company because the product is going to Venezuela. So the pharmaceutical company doesn't get paid. It doesn't produce the insulin. There's no insulin ship to Venezuela, nor does the bank repatriate the money that was sent to Venezuela, or that was sent to the German bank so it's really robbing financial resources from every direction. It's really a grab of all forms of resources. And of course, the people that suffer were all the diabetes patients in Venezuela. So that is just one personal anecdote. Dr. Park you have many, many more specific examples you can share with us on North Korea. And so I invite you to join us. There you go. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Terry for organizing this webinar. This is a topic that's very dear to my heart. We'll do it with Kevin give a very nice overview of the sanctions how it works. We'll do a little bit of a deep dive into the North Korea situation. So the sanctions started in earnest the UN Security Council sanctions in 2006, and this coincides with the North Korean governments nuclear program and in the in the rocket program. And initially these were what we call smart smart sanctions to 2006 to 2016. And just a little bit of a backtrack. The world has been through this before where sanctions were creating all kinds of humanitarian issues in the Iraqi situation. So there was a big push to make sure the sanctions were somewhat targeted to so that it doesn't harm ordinary people so these were called smart sanctions, and that's what was applied from 2006 2016. The military obviously, and in the elite. But then the weapons program progressed and in November of 2016, right after the fourth nuclear test. The sanctions moved on to what we call sectoral sanctions. These are basically designed. These are very blunt instruments. These are not specifically targeted in the military. The export industry blocking all export, the main exports of coal, seafood and textile. Really what what they're trying to do through these sanctions is to cut off all revenues, all foreign currencies from coming into North Korea, and thereby crippling their weapons program, as least as their calculus. They also limited down to 10% of the previous levels importation of fuel oil. Now you can imagine what that would do to an economy when you basically remove 90% of existing also by and down to 10% of previous years levels. They also banned importation of head machinery, industrial equipment vehicles and things like that they also banned joint ventures. It's basically at this point in economic embargo. They also voted to remove expel all North Korean workers living and working outside of North Korea by December of 2019. I'm sure you also saw some reports about that. So let's just go back to what we mean by a global sanctions regime. So this is the UN sanctions Security Council sanctions but Kevin alluded to the US unilateral sanctions. And it's really hard to separate the two because they work so well, hand in hand, at least for serves the US foreign policy needs. So as you know, UN Security Council, the US has veto power. So when when when the rockets were being fired, nuclear tests were being done there was a fair amount of consensus regarding let's put some pressure on North Korea. So they passed these these these sanctions, and that included Russia and China, right. They have what their permanent members of the Security Council that have veto power. They agreed to it. But now the criteria that these countries have used to to to vote for this sanctions may have may be different now so for instance Russia and China may have thought, you know what if they stop testing, then we should roll back these sanctions. There's a thing called reverse veto, which means US also has to agree to roll back on these sanctions. So even though the other members of the Security Council may say it's time to roll back the sanctions. It only takes one country, namely US to say we're not rolling back until they meet our expectations, our foreign policy objectives. So here's this this is where US has really commandeered and co-opted the Security Council for their foreign policy. We also and Kevin talked about the Office of Foreign Assets and Control US banking system is on the control of US Treasury, and then US banking system is integrated into the global financial system. And they have passed executive orders where basically is, you know, it takes, this is how it reads a foreign financial institution, which has no only conducted a facilitated significant trade with North Korea. It may lose its ability to maintain a correspondent bank in the US US, right. It's basically saying if you facilitate a transaction with ultimate beneficiary of products going into North Korea. You could be removed from the Swiss system, which is a kiss of death for a bank so no bank wants to do to deal with these things and I'll give you a specific example a little bit later. I want to talk a little bit about the humanitarian impact because the title of this webinar is sanctions kill and I will really want to dive into this is this issue. These sanctions harm the weakest and the most marginalized people of other countries but specifically North Korea. We're dealing with the, we're dealing with a population which is already 40% food insecure. One out of five child children are stunted and then they have one of the highest tuberculosis burdens in the world. So humanitarian organizations are in there trying to help the most, the people that have fallen behind right people that are most vulnerable. Here's what's what's happened UN agencies are already there they publish annual reports saying these are the urgent needs for let's say 2018 for food, basic medical needs and clean water. Well unfortunately they requested $111 million, but because of the pressure against the donors only 24% ended up being funded. This is a big issue and plus on top of that, they did not not only these humanitarian agencies are not getting funded to do their program. Operational capabilities are degraded. And we talked about the banking channel. And I'll get a given example there is a one UN agency which I was in North Korea in November last year. And the North Korean government said this organization is one point over a million dollars behind on their bills, which is their rent, you know fuel electricity things that you know they need to keep their office open in Pyongyang. It turns out that this organization used to get cash out from a bank, an outside bank, and then bring the cash into the country when in fact this is how all the other organizations do with their hand carry cash into the country to pay for their expenses. Well the bank that was actually given this cash asked, what is where's this money going for. And of course the agency the UN agency they're going to say it's going into North Korea to support our operational expenses. Well the bank de-risked themselves and said, No, we can't release money if we know when you know it's going to go to North Korea. It's legitimate UN agency operational expenses, and banks are refusing to facilitate these transactions. It's one clear example. Now, my group at Harvard Medical School we actually did a research project last summer, looking specifically at the human cost. We asked ourselves, is there a way to estimate how many people might have died as a result of the sanctions and the funding cuts for the humanitarian aid organizations in North Korea. And it turns out that we can, specifically the UN agencies, they publish each year what they're intending to do and what they were able to achieve the very next year. And we came up with an estimate, at least for 2018, almost 4000 people, we think have died as a result of the sanctions and the funding shortcuts with their program. And most of them, 3200 children under five, and this also includes over 70 pregnant women who are not able to get emergency reproductive kits that they could have used when they had complications during pregnancy, when they were delivering children. Let's talk a little bit about the gendered impact. We know sanctions degrade women's economic status and put in the social rights. We know that in the market trade, the sanctions are designed to reduce market trading. This is primarily a female occupation. We just talked about how maternal health is directly impacted by absence of these emergency reproductive kids. We talked about also the fuel and importation of heavy equipment. Women are the primary gatherers of clean water, water in rural areas. So now I have to walk to further distances to get water and farming or mechanized farming require fuel. Well, if you don't have fuel, then you have to go back to doing farming the old fashioned way, which is physical labor. So these things have direct impact on women disproportionately on the women of North Korea. So I get asked about, well, Dr. Park, what have you actually seen inside North Korea as a result of these sanctions. So I've been going since 2007 I'm a surgeon I actually operated inside the ORs in Pyongyang primarily. And that, you know, just give you an idea. It's a low resource country. And they're scared and they have been socialized for scarcity. For instance, I'm given a scalpel. Typically, you know, we get fresh scalpel every time we do a new case. I get rusty scalpel because they want to use it till it can't be used anymore. So these are the kind of things that we experience and they use just about reuse just about everything until it becomes unusable. The sanctions, don't forget it, not only does it impede humanitarian organizations from being able to deliver assistance to North Korea, but it also hinders the North Korean governments of effort to let's say we prepare their hospital equipment, medical equipment. They can't import. And as an x-ray machine that was in the operating room for since 2007, we were able to use it every year. If it breaks, they were able to get parts and we can use it. Well just a year and a half ago, machine was broken. So I asked the surgeons there what happened. So we can't get parts. And so they walked me through the whole process. They said, well, we don't have foreign currency number one to be able to purchase it. Even if you've found the vendor that's willing to sell us a part to a North Korean entity, which is, which may be these days is hard to do. You can't send the money out over there. And plus the Chinese systems will block it at the border because anything with metal, they have to stop and then report. You see what you can see clearly the kind of challenges the North Korean health system and the doctors that you know that the care for the patients are experiencing. I want to do a little bit of this talk about the COVID-19 situation. It's an interesting development. You know, North Korea when the Chinese, there was an epidemic located in Wuhan. They saw what was happening and they were finding patients moving closer and closer to the Chinese North Korea border. They immediately sealed off all their entry points and then stopped the tourism immediately and then subsequently stopped all trade with China. So the borders completely sealed. This has a huge cost economic implications for North Korean economy. Their main trading partners is China, obviously the tourism also brings in foreign currency. They stopped it because they're afraid of having the virus enter into their country. They asked for help. They actually went and officially asked for help with the international organizations to get ready with diagnostic equipment and supplies to treat patients because if there's a surge of patients which I think they will eventually have, they don't have the capacity to deal with massive numbers. Maybe just a handful, but the massive numbers were overwhelmed the system. So the UN Security Council, the North Korea Sanctions Committee and the US State Department actually made press releases. To me it was unprecedented showing solidarity with North Korean people saying we're concerned about the North Korean people when it comes to the COVID-19 threat. But what they did was, they still said we're willing to facilitate expeditiously all the exemption request that needs to be for supplying assistance to North Korea. And then here I realize the problem, right? I give an analogy. Let's say I see a patient on the street, he's got an injury, he's bleeding to death. I should go there and stop the bleeding and try to do whatever surgery or whatever like that. For me to, if I had to stop and then say wait, I have to check with somebody if I can do this or not. That makes no sense, but that's exactly what's happening. The sanctions regime has a humanitarian exemption clause that is completely absurd. The COVID-19 situation has really put a spotlight on the absurdity of the UN Security Council regime. The whole idea of having asked for permission on a case-by-case basis in a setting of international health emergencies. It doesn't make sense anymore. So I just want to finish off with saying that sanctions are shackling the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver aid to North Korea, even though they explicitly state that they're not intended to do so. As a result, innocent people, many children and women have died in North Korea, at least in our estimation. And then this COVID-19 situation clearly exposes the inhumane nature of this sanctions regime when it comes to humanitarian conditions. And I think we need to talk about now, can we come up with an accountability mechanism when applying sanctions so that we don't have any further in the future loss of innocent human lives. So I'll stop there. Sorry, I need to unmute myself. Thank you so much, Dr. Park. I wonder, Kevin, if you could pick up with the humanitarian issues, particularly regarding healthcare systems and medicine in Iran and Venezuela, and I will say, I just saw a message that in Venezuela, President Maduro has just called for a national quarantine. So maybe, Kevin, with your research on Iran and Venezuela, we could specifically look at probably Iran right now, but also Venezuela because they're moving in a similar direction. How, how these nations are not able, is that, can you hear me okay. Yeah, okay, it sounds warbly on my end, I'm sorry. If we could discuss the healthcare system in Iran, and potentially Venezuela as well now and how they will or will not be able to respond. No, it's very garbled. No, it's almost like it's reverberating. Okay, do you want to try again. Okay, that's much better. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, much better. Thank you. So, as I said before, Iran and Venezuela's economies are both very dependent on oil production and exportation. So, when you see the Trump sanctions against Venezuela or the Trump sanctions against Iran, you can you can see that in the oil production data very clearly. You can calculate how much money and how much foreign exchange these economies are missing out on because of the sanctions. So, what my colleague at deeper did last year with Jeffrey sex was try to quantify that and then look at surveys about mortality. And you can see that three Venezuelan universities conducted a survey and found during the period of increased sanctions there is about 40,000 deaths, excess deaths. So, this is from not getting cancer medication. This is from not getting medication to treat HIV. It's from not getting basic supplies. It's from all sorts of things. And it's a very rough estimate but you know based on what's happening in Venezuela and how the sanctions have worked out. We can expect that to increase or have increased since that period. And it's the same thing with Iran Iran has a more diversified economy. And so it's a little bit more insulated from the sorts of things that then as well has been subjected to. So, this is still the same story. If you talk to doctors there, there's been some news reports about that are featured Iranian doctors they talk about not having supplies, they can't treat people and cancer wards. And this is because we, you know, we're only so many medications that a person with a specific type of cancer can get that are effective. And it's, you know, there aren't, you know, the Iranian economy can't just generate a substitute it can't, you know, do that so quickly. And if it did it would be very expensive. So that's sort of how these two countries have been affected by those sanctions and it's important to note that it's always the most vulnerable that hurt the most. There are different effects on women on men. Obviously people were very sick. Probably hurt more than the main population. But Iran also saw food shortages so there are a lot of effects on the economy. These two countries it's it's more easy to see them in countries that aren't relying on or as much as an export. You know, with the coronavirus, I think that it's going to get much worse for these countries and they're going to be many more deaths. And both countries have have traded with China and Russia bilaterally to sell oil and I know that both of them, those players are going to be very important to them getting the relief that they need. I believe China has delivered supplies to Iran. And medical teams. So it looks like Trump won't relieve the sanctions on Iran even during this critical period so that's sort of the mechanism by which they're going to need to get help. I also think that, you know, it's this is a very unique moment and there's going to be a lot of suffering. But it's important to emphasize that this is a crime all the time. These sanctions are illegal in various ways by international law and the US government is can get away with it, but we need to remember that this is an ongoing crime. So thank you for mentioning that sanctions are an ongoing crime I think this is one of the, the biggest educational hurdles we have here in the United States as a population is getting citizens to understand sanctions as warfare. It is not conventional warfare so it is not something that has to necessarily go through Congress a lot of sanctions are introduced on countries through the White House through executive order. In response to national emergencies and I would just let all of you know that in regard to that Ilhan that specific form of sanctioning as a national emergency from the executive office. Ilhan Omar has introduced a bill of February 12 I believe to revise how the executive office can implement sanctions in response to national emergencies and she has included in that bill our sunset. Regulations so as Dr Park as you had mentioned that perhaps they, which is not being seen in the UN Security Council that when the sanctions to measure the sanctions and what they're achieving and then to gradually retract them as conditions improved so it's not a policy overhaul of us foreign policy, but it is an attempt. It's a start and it's so I would encourage all of you to visit her. Her website and take a look at that legislation that she's introduced because it is a first step particularly for those of us who do work here on the hill in Washington it is a first step for us to really openly talk about sanctions as as a form of warfare. It's really important that people understand and I think both of you have given really clear, very clear pictures of what's happening to the general population. So many of us here in the states feel that again as we had opened with we're not dropping bombs on these countries. We don't have boots on the ground. How can it be. And it's because we're still thinking in terms of conventional warfare versus new forms or hybrid forms of warfare economic warfare, cyber attacks those sort of thing. I wonder as we've been talking about how the sanctions are affecting general populations in grotesquely high numbers, and the inability to provide health care. So, can we have a brief conversation as to how different countries are actually responding we're seeing certain countries like China mobilized at a very, you know, the complete government and complete population versus the privatized system we have here in the United States where the communities are figuring it out community by community city by city state by state. So, can we have a brief conversation about the benefits of a certain of a very strong government led reaction to coronavirus particularly those countries under sanction versus how we're seeing the United States respond. Anybody want to jump in on that. I just wanted to mention something. So, you know the current sanctions require humanitarian exemptions approval at the 1718 committee. And this COVID-19 situation. There's there's one clear example where the one country has flooded the sanctions. This is unprecedented. They just said, we're going to send 1500 diagnostic kits. And so I have some contacts at the Security Council the the sanctions committee. Hey, did the Russians get an exemption for this. And I was told no, and they sent it in. And so what they're saying is, listen, go ahead and you know, try to crack down on this it makes no sense right. I'm trying to stop trying to send in the diagnostic kits for for COVID-19. And I'm pretty sure the Chinese are also providing assistance. And they're not telling, and they're not getting up front approval at the sanctions committee. So here's some examples where some countries are actually flowering sanctions. So Kevin is there anything you want to add. Yeah, I would just say that. You know, I think China has specifically said that this is an international problem and that, you know, countries need to work together instead of, you know, trying to handle this alone or, you know, blaming other countries or what have you. And I think that that might be behind some of how they've approached aid Italy requested aid from the European Union and this is, you know, these are countries that are in a confederation together. And it didn't receive a response that received a response from China. So China, I think in times like these and in times when, you know, countries like Iran or Venezuela under sanctions has been important because it has a very big economy and manufactures a lot of stuff. It can have the power to confront the United States, although it's very, you know, usually very diplomatic when it does so. And that's it's a very important counterweight to these, these sanctions. The US government, I think could could, you know, following what it's done to banks in Venezuela Iran, it could shut down or put a lot of Chinese banks on its sanctions list, but it hasn't because I think China is too important to the United States and too important to the global economy. And that's a very good development for countries like Iran or Venezuela or any any country that needs help like Italy. One of the things I want to mention that as we're talking about the use of sanctions and the fact that they don't work is that right here in our own hemisphere, the nation of Cuba has been sanctioned embargoed by the United States since 1961. There has been no change of government on Cuba, the Cuban people are extraordinarily resilient in how they're responding for the last 60 years and developing, they're very resourceful and they have not changed their government. So it's right here, not far from where Kevin and I live there is no regime change for 60 years. And so this is a system and a form of warfare a form of regime change us influence that just simply doesn't work. And also I don't know how many of our listeners know that also here in our hemisphere Nicaragua has been sanctions have been financial sanctions have been expanded on Nicaragua as of last Thursday. That was done in Congress on a verbal vote, an oral vote that was done very quietly and passed unanimously. So this is really an outright form of regime change foreign policy economic warfare. I wonder if other one of you have any specific examples you could add to that. And I think we have a few questions to help. This one is for Dr Park. If you could give a few more examples as to your personal experience performing surgery in North Korea. But you see the difficulties. It all boils down to a country that's struggling with low resources. And the, as far as a number of doctors surgeons anesthesiologist nurses and things like that they have actually have an army of healthcare workforce, and they're on the government payroll. The problem is they did the things that are costly, no consumables. These this is where they struggle. Despite that the North Koreans are super. What's the word. I'm looking for their, their, their, their innovative and creative, and that they, they, they're not really digging in to this sanctions regime. They're not hoping for a sentence rollback. So one of the things that I've seen North Koreans do is develop their own medical devices. So I have seen North Korean artificial knee joint that they have developed. And now they're implanting it on their own patients. Also for spine surgery, they're, they're, they're, they have developed them that are using as screws. They have also manufactured their own ultrasound machines for domestic consumption patient monitors and things like that. So I think what they're doing is now developing their own technology so they don't have to be dependent on an external resources but there are a few things that they just, they just can't develop like the North therapeutic agents and some of the very high, high, high technical things. They would that that's something that they couldn't. The number of people that would benefit from that is small anyway so the investment would be be there. So, so yeah, the North Koreans are trying to become self self reliant and then become sanctions resistant if you will. But having said that it's a difficult time for them, right. These sanctions are impacting the hospitals from so the machine still remains a broken that makes things much more harder to operate. So yeah, you know, these are some of the things that I've seen and then it's unfortunate. It reminds me of one of my visits to Venezuela right after sanctions had been I think maybe 2000 early 2018 and the sanctions were expanded quite strongly in August to 17. And one of the people I was traveling with said you know at some point the United States is going to sanction itself into obsolescence and listening to you talk about the resiliency of the North Korean people and how they're developing diversifying their own economy to provide their own resources we see the same in Cuba. Iran to I believe Kevin, although a number of their domestic industries have been sanctioned as well. And so it's really an interesting thing to see that as, as the sanctions get more pronounced and tighter and tighter on more and more countries, it's leaving other countries no alternative, but to find solutions outside of the United States. And so currency and everything. And so I wonder how both of you feel about that. Right right so these are the unintended consequences of sanctions sort of the other perspective right on the US. There may end up being a separate banking channel that excludes the US dollar, you know they because that right now, one country can determine, you know, the financial flows of the world, that's that's completely outrageous. So there may be a second banking channel, a non dollar that related right so that North Korea can send money to Iran and Russia or whoever Cuba. And there's a way to do that and maybe the Chinese will sort of use there and maybe as the backing but I don't know, but these are some of the unintended consequences. Kevin, would you like to comment on that? Yeah, I think that the head of the central bank in England has floated some idea about a whole new international banking system that's not based on the US government. And a lot of these European countries are, you know, upset because they want to do business with Iran they like the Iran deal they didn't want the US government to get rid of it. And they can't, you know, transact with Iran. And they're setting up this humanitarian channel called insects, but it remains to be seen if it's even going to work. So it has people thinking about creating a whole new system that isn't based on the US dollar and a development, you know, that's going to be forced by the US basically abusing its privileged position. But it's going to be something that other countries eventually want, especially if the US government keeps doing this kind of stuff. Is there anything that we should add in closing? Some of the questions I'm seeing have been answered in throughout the last 50 minutes of your conversation. Maybe we could talk about the things that US citizens can do here. Here at home to influence foreign policy I know that's a lot of what Kevin and my work is but Dr. Park is there anything specifically that you would suggest to average citizens what they might be able to do to help change the situation. Right. So this is the kind of the webinar is a great example of education because a lot of people may or may not know that sort of the ins and outs of what's happening in sanctions and how US is really abusing its privilege. And then if they're they're they're concerned and they should speak up to their representatives in Washington saying we put some pressure on the executive branch. And then there's you know the other other countries. The world is not just US there are other countries in the world they're very concerned about what's happened. And how do we get them to come together and then apply a new form of multilateral accountability mechanism that ensures innocent lives are not lost. This is absurd how even if each time we're not in war, the people that innocent people are being killed, and I had to use that term but it's true, and no one's being held accountable. And it is a form of, I think I was in a conversation earlier this morning regarding Iran specifically that, you know, it is their inability to effectively respond to the coronavirus because they cannot import the medicines and and and that they need it is resulting in a form of it is killing. It is a it is a secondary form of murder. And, and that is what we really need our the US population to understand. So do either one and what would you suggest. Are there any projects that our viewers could get involved in to help. Are there any things in a better direction. Any projects that you would suggest we take on, even here at code pink what would you like to see us do. I would say that I think highlighting, you know, ways sanctions work, and how this is very specific to the US and how this is a story about how the US government has these privileges and how it uses them to essentially kill vulnerable and poor countries to achieve foreign policy goals. I mean, if that story can get more widely known. I don't think the average American really wants, you know, the US government to be doing that sort of thing. It's not the US the American people don't vote based on foreign policy necessarily but you know it's very hard to justify something like this to you know the people who it is being done in their name. So, I think just getting that story out there would be very helpful. You talk about sanctions and most people don't even realize this is a US story they think it's just how banks work, and it's not how banks work it's how the US government controls banks. So. So I have one more question before I let you both go on I'm so thankful you've been able to give us an hour of your time I really really appreciate it. I have a suggestion by a viewer. The viewer suggesting we push the World Health Organization to come out against sanctions affecting Coronavirus. Is that does that make sense and is that something that we as citizens and activists can take on. Even in the North Korea context there is a UN resident coordinator who oversees all the UN agencies including UNICEF and W World Health Organization. And he collects information from all these agencies on how the sanctions are impeding their work, and then reports back reports that back to the UN Security Council. So that's that that's the mechanism that that's that's set up. Well, I want to take it a step further. And WHO is not a political organization they really can't be because they're governed by the 190 or whatever 96 member states. And so there they serve as a secretary so they can't really point out political issues by themselves. But this Coronavirus situation, it's changed everything it really highlighted that the threat that we're dealing with is really an external threat. The traditional dynamic is, you know, the international security is adversarial right it's us and them and you know North Korea is a threat to us and we have to apply sanctions. This global health security issue has made people think more about how do we cooperate and fight against an external threat. And it's opens up an interesting dialogue is how do we cooperate internationally in a much better way, and sanctions just don't help in that dialogue. No, I think this is a kind of an opening, we should take it and then build on it. I completely agree with that and one of the terms you used a few minutes ago Dr Park was a multilateral solution. And I'm a big proponent of multilateral solutions versus the current unilateral paradigm we're working in. So Kevin any closing statements before I let you both go as we approached nine o'clock and I so thank all of you for staying with us this hour. I think Americans can ask Congress and to repeal sanctions that Congress has passed. They can put pressure on Donald Trump to repeal them. This is a public health disaster. So, you know, there's a certain sort of incentive for that in that regard but also this is about saving people's lives and I think the average person can understand that stopping medicine or stopping masks or stopping ventilators from going into a country right now as well as in the future but especially right now it doesn't make any sense. Well it's a problem that's going to come right back home and harm all of us. Our own foreign policy is going to come home and affect all of us. So anything else we should say before I let you both go anything that I have not we've got a few questions that I will follow up with personally when offline. Because they're going to take some really in depth research so I appreciate some of, of what some of the viewers have proposed. Anything else that we've not that we should say before I let everyone go. You asked about some of the projects so we are working on a couple of events at Harvard. We're specifically looking at geopolitical determinants of health in North Korea, and one event will score the look at the the sanction situation very closely so I'm sure I'll be talking to both of you. Oh, I hope so that'll be a great follow up webinar, great follow up conversation. I want to let our viewers know that on Wednesday at 12pm Eastern, we code pink will be hosting a webinar on on Iran specifically and the health care crisis there with coronavirus so you'll be able to watch that on zoom or code pink on Facebook live page that's Wednesday 12pm Eastern, and I would also ask that you visit code pink dot org for additional information on sanctions and both of our speakers tonight. And I so thank everyone for for spending this past hour with us. Thank you Dr Park. Thank you Kevin, and let's do this again. Your pleasure. Definitely. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bye bye.