After Otto Warmbier's Death, Lawmakers Consider North Korea Travel Ban
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The death of 22-year-old Otto Warmbier at the hands of the North Korean regime is stirring a debate in the U.S. Capitol over whether America should ban travel to the rogue nation. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson floated the idea at a hearing last week, but the death of the college student, who was in a coma for more than a year and suffered serious brain damage while incarcerated for 17 months, has lawmakers considering whether they need to put the ban in law.
"We’re limited. China is the entity that can put the most pressure," Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters Tuesday.
"We end up in a very difficult situation when Americans go visiting and end up with these trumped up charges, we extend a tremendous amount of resources and time to try to free them, as we should, but it’s time that we look at the whole policy of U.S. citizens going there knowing that they have absolutely zero interest in true human rights there."
Other lawmakers are warning Americans to avoid traveling to the oppressive country, even if they were planning to for humanitarian, academic or even journalistic purposes.
"I think the treatment of this individual was disastrous and sadly not completely unpredictable in dealing with this regime, so I can’t imagine a single American that would want to travel there after the way he was treated," Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) told reporters at the Capitol. “But whether you need legislation to bar it or not I haven’t really given it that much thought.”
Other Democrats argue the Trump administration needs to exert more pressure on North Korean leaders, with or without a travel ban.
"The administration needs to be much tougher on North Korea," Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) tells Countable. “We’re in the process of working on economic sanctions on North Korea, modeled after the sanctions we placed on Iran. The administration been engaged in a lot of reckless tough talk without specific action.”
Tell your lawmakers what you think of North Korea's treatment of Otto Warmbier
- Matt Laslo
(Photo Credit: (stephan) / Creative Commons)
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