North Korea standoff shows US power in the Gulf reigns supreme

Although the United States is finding no easy and effective way to deal with North Korea’s nuclear brinkmanship and its firing of missiles over Japan, the Trump administration has managed to make the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) pay for such provocative action by pressuring Washington’s Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) allies to take action against Pyongyang. The GCC states of most economic importance to the DPRK – Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – have, by now, severed or downgraded diplomatic relations with North Korea and cut off economic links.

In October, officials in Abu Dhabi announced their plans to terminate diplomatic relations with the DPRK; end the missions of North Korea’s non-resident ambassador to the UAE (who is also Pyongyang’s ambassador to Kuwait) and the UAE’s non-resident ambassador to Pyongyang; cease to permit firms from the Hermit Kingdom to work in the Gulf country’s seven emirates; and stop issuing visas or licenses to North Korean citizens. The foreign ministry justified Abu Dhabi’s move “within the context of [the UAE’s] obligation as a responsible member of the international community to strengthen the international will and to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile programs.”

Pyongyang’s formal ties with GCC states date back to the 1990s and 2000s, and for years the Hermit Kingdom has deployed thousands from North Korea’s labor force to work on projects in the Gulf, which have often entailed hazardous conditions and low pay even by the standards of the GCC’s foreign workers from other impoverished Asian countries. 

For Pyongyang, the oil-rich Gulf countries have been a source from where earning hard currency is relatively easy - which has been increasingly important for the regime since international sanctions began squeezing the North Korean economy. 

Gulf-based firms have placed much value on North Korean workers’ willingness to work for less money and their earned reputation for being highly disciplined. For example, in Doha, North Korean migrant workers have been hired to work on construction projects as Qatar prepares to host the World Cup in 2022. As of 2014, there were approximately 3,000 North Korean laborers in Qatar.

Yet until the Qatar crisis broke out, GCC states did not highlight another Council member’s ties with Pyongyang to undermine its reputation in Washington. After all, since 2007, all GCC members (save Saudi Arabia) have had relations with North Korea, so why throw stones when everyone lives in a glass house?

Since June 5, however, media outlets based in the Anti-Terror Quartet countries and special interest groups in the US opposed to Qatar have painted the Arabian emirate as North Korea’s friend in the GCC, which has contributed to the development of Pyongyang’s arsenal of weapons. 

The Qatar Insider recently released a video, entitled “Qatar and North Korea: Partners in Terror?”, which suggests that Doha is responsible for helping to strengthen the Pyongyang regime “which continues to develop missiles and nuclear weapons aimed at the United States.” On October 9, Al Arabiya published an opinion piece likening the Emir of Qatar to Kim Jong-un.

Yet Qatar’s decision last month to stop issuing visas to North Korean citizens undermined this narrative and pressured the UAE to show its support for the Trump administration’s plans to apply more pressure on Pyongyang. 

At a time when the parties involved in the Qatar crisis seek to demonstrate to the Trump administration how valuable they each are as American allies, the Korean standoff has become an issue that the GCC states have not been able to ignore amid their competition to gain more favorability from the White House.

Whereas Kuwait merely downgraded them and Qatar solely stopped issuing visas to North Korean workers, the UAE has thus been the only GCC state to fully sever diplomatic relations with the DPRK. The UAE, which has had a special relationship with past administrations – both Republican and Democratic, is determined to convince Washington that Abu Dhabi remains its most trusted ally in the Gulf.

Ultimately, the Qatar crisis’ timing, coinciding with the mounting friction between the United States and North Korea, has led to new geopolitical dynamics that have cost the DPRK an economic lifeline from three gas/oil-rich Arabian monarchies in the Persian Gulf. To be sure, the majority of revenue that the DPRK has accumulated over the years by deploying its citizens as laborers in foreign countries has not been from the GCC, but instead mainly from China, the Czech Republic, Mongolia, and Russia. 

With 90 percent of North Korea’s foreign trade being with China, the loss of economic ties with the Arabian Peninsula is unlikely to sway Pyongyang into capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands. Yet the severance of economic relations with GCC states will add to the costs that North Korea pays for defying UN Security Council resolutions and push the Hermit Kingdom into more international isolation.

Although US influence in the Arab world declined significantly following the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq and the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011, Washington’s ability to pressure three GCC states into taking such steps against North Korea underscores substantial influence that the United States retains in the region, particularly among the Gulf sheikdoms.