Almost no North Koreans travel to the U.S., so why ban them?

HONG KONG — President Trump’s extension of the travel ban to North Korea is mostly symbolic and will have little to no effect on Kim Jong Un’s regime, experts said Monday.

Trump on Sunday issued an executive order indefinitely banning travel to the United States from eight countries. The list includes all but one of the countries covered by the original ban plus three more: Chad, Venezuela and North Korea.

While the entire order is sure to be controversial, the timing of the North Korea add is particularly sensitive because it comes amid a protracted standoff over North Korea’s weapons program.

Successive rounds of U.N. sanctions have done little to curb missile and nuclear tests, with the Kim regime pushing ahead and threatening, repeatedly, to target the United States.

In recent days, the situation has devolved into name-calling with the U.S. president tweeting vague threats to “Rocket Man” Kim and the North Korean dictator firing back at “dotard” Trump.

In the context of this escalating conflict, the North Korea travel ban may appear to be part of the U.S. push to isolate the regime. But experts said the provisions are unlikely to do so — or, in fact, accomplish anything concrete at all.