US-NK trade plummets drastically to $100,000 range

Trade between the United States and North Korea plummeted drastically to the low $100,000 range last year in the face of tightening American sanctions over the North's defiant nuclear tests, data showed Thursday.

Bilateral trade volume stood at $139,334 between the US and North Korea last year, which marks only 2.9 percent of what the countries traded in 2015, according to the data listed by the US Census Bureau.

It was the first time two-way trade volume has fallen to the $100,000 level since 1992, not counting 2006, when North Korea's first nuclear test thwarted all transactions. 

North Korean construction workers repair houses from flood damages. (Yonhap)

The meager trade number in 2016 is exclusively the result of Washington's humanitarian assistance that trickled into the communist country. The US did not import anything from the North.

After North Korea's two nuclear tests and numerous missile launches last year, the US suspended all commercial trade with the country. (Yonhap)