
The Bush administration wants North Korea’s attention, so like a scolding parent, it’s trying to make it tougher for that country’s eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions, and Segway electric scooters. The U.S. government’s first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run his communist nation.