North Korea to Offset US Sanctions by Exporting More Workers Abroad

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will likely send more citizens to work abroad to offset financial losses inflicted by the new US economic sanctions, Christian activist and Asia-based humanitarian aid worker Tim Peters told Sputnik.

On Thursday, US President Barack Obama signed into law the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act that strengthens and expands statutory sanctions against North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear and ballistic missile activities.

"The added sanctions may cause some additional belt-tightening by the Kim regime," Peters stated on Saturday. "Most likely… Kim Jong Un will send out additional workers to the tens of thousands that are already overseas to gain foreign currency."

The North Korean regime will skim up to eighty percent from the salaries of these added "worker bees," Peters noted, to help compensate from revenues lost by both sanctions and South Korea's closing of the Kaesong industrial complex.

On February 3, South Korea’s Unification Ministry announced that it was suspending operations at the Kaesong industrial complex, run jointly by North and South Korea, in response to Pyongyang’s recent nuclear bomb test and satellite launch.

Peters added that North Korea’s "quick buck" strategy to raise state revenue is inherently short-sighted and self-defeating because as citizens are exposed to the relative prosperity of China and other countries, "disenchantment will inevitably set in."

Earlier this month, North Korea fired a long-range rocket to allegedly put a satellite into orbit in violation of a UN Security Council resolution. In January, Pyongyang declared that it had successfully carried out a hydrogen bomb test.