About the Author
James Fretwell
James Fretwell is an Analyst at NK News. Follow him on Twitter @JamesFretwe11 or get in touch at [email protected]
Economically stunted, battered by natural disasters and lacking foreign aid, today’s North Korea looks a lot like the North Korea of the mid-1990s — a time of famine known as the “Arduous March.”
North Korea was already struggling under the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” sanctions regime, and it’s now under further stress due to COVID-19. The DPRK claims it has zero cases of the virus as of July 30, but the country remains sealed off from the outside world in order to prevent it from spreading.