China and Russia adopt Security Council resolution after US proposals watered down UN measures include an embargo on textile exports, a halt to employing additional North Korean workers overseas and a cap on refined petroleum trading

9 hours ago by: Demetri Sevastopulo and Katrina Manson in Washington

The UN has unanimously adopted its strongest sanctions yet on North Korea, aimed at depriving Pyongyang of more than $1.3bn in annual revenues and boosting pressure on Kim Jong Un’s regime following its recent nuclear test.

The measures, which include an embargo on textile exports, a halt to employing additional North Korean workers overseas and a cap on refined petroleum trading that will reduce oil imports by 30 per cent, won support from China and Russia, but only after stronger proposals circulated by the US were watered down.

“Combined with the previous Security Council resolutions, over 90 per cent of North Korea’s publicly reported 2016 exports of $2.7bn are now banned,” said a statement from the US mission to the UN, adding they were “the strongest sanctions ever imposed on North Korea”.

The Trump administration originally pushed for a UN Security Council resolution that would place an embargo on refined petroleum exports to North Korea. But according to the final resolution, Pyongyang can import 500,000 tonnes over the final three months of 2017 and 2m tonnes in 2018. It will also be banned from importing all natural gas liquids.

Washington, which estimates the textile ban alone will cost the Kim regime $800m, is trying to ratchet up the pressure on Pyongyang to boost its leverage ahead of any future talks with North Korea about dismantling its nuclear programme.

The stakes have increased dramatically this year as North Korea has accelerated the pace of its rocket tests, conducting two intercontinental ballistic missiles launches and flying a ballistic missile over Japan. Most recently, Pyongyang conducted its sixth nuclear test of what it said was a hydrogen bomb.

“Today we are saying the world will never accept a nuclear armed North Korea,” said Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN. “It is alone, it is dark and it is getting darker,” she said of the regime.

“We have learned that half-efforts against the regime have not worked,” she added, citing a range of other global measures against the country following intensive lobbying by the US. These include the Philippines cutting off all trade with North Korea, Thailand reducing its ties and Mexico declaring North Korea’s ambassador as persona non grata.

Ahead of Monday evening’s vote at the UN, Russia and China had signalled their opposition to a complete embargo on petrol and other refined petroleum products. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, last week said that North Korea would rather “eat grass” than yield to outside pressure.

“China and Russia are North Korea’s chief sanctions enablers and used their veto power to water down the UN sanctions, but they do not get a veto on the US sanctions the Trump administration should impose soon after the resolution is adopted,” said Anthony Ruggiero, a former US government sanctions expert now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

In a statement ahead of the vote, North Korea defended its development of a hydrogen bomb, saying its nuclear programme represents “legitimate self-defensive measures” and that the US has revealed itself “as a bloody-thirsty beast obsessed with the wild dream of reversing [North Korea’s] development of the state nuclear force”.

It said it would make sure the US pays a “due price” should the resolution pass, threatening to cause the US “the greatest pain and suffering it has ever gone through in its entire history”.

While the original draft barred countries from using North Korean workers — who provide a source of revenue for the regime in Pyongyang — the final version only bans countries from hiring new workers, and does not require countries to expel workers with existing contracts. The US estimates that close to 100,000 North Korean guest workers — of whom many are in China and Russia — send back $500m a year in hard currency.

US officials including Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, have praised efforts by China to impose more economic pain on North Korea than it has in the past. But they have also expressed frustration that Beijing has not been willing to go further. China argues that increasing sanctions on Pyongyang reduces the political leverage that it has because of its increasingly strained relations with its neighbour.

The US rejected suggestions that the proposed sanctions had been diluted in the face of opposition from Beijing and Moscow. “This will be the strongest and most impactful sanctions package yet,” said a spokesman for the US mission to the UN.

One diplomat from a Security Council nation said that although the sanctions on oil stopped short of a complete embargo, the oil and other energy-related element in the final draft were “strong measures” that would send a clear signal to Pyongyang.