Via BI:

North Korea has backed off some of its usual winter military exercises in a possible sign that President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy to force Kim Jong Un to the negotiating table has had an effect.

North Korea’s military drills that run from December to March got off to a late start and weren’t as involved as they usually are, US officials told The Wall Street Journal.

The slowdown in exercises could be due to resource constraints introduced by sanctions — including a 160% increase in fuel prices — or legitimate political will on the North Korean side to calm recently boiling tensions. Whatever the reason, the lull in training certainly takes a toll in a military sense by reducing readiness, and it coincides with a few ominous signs for Kim’s government.

“We are seeing defections happening in areas where we don’t generally see them, for example crossing the DMZ,” Gen. Vincent K. Brooks, the commander of US forces in South Korea, told The Journal.

North Korea has been under heavy UN sanctions for years, but under Trump’s administration the resolutions have taken on a new character.

The US has managed to get a handful of African nations to agree to stop trade with North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson routinely asks foreign diplomats about North Korea and what can be done to clamp down on its funding, sources told Business Insider.

Egypt, Sudan, and recently Angola have been faced with the choice of trading with the US or trading with North Korea, and they have all chosen the US.

Andrea Berger, an expert on North Korean sanctions at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Business Insider that while Obama administration officials tried the same approach, “no one thought that US would make good on the threats” under Obama.