Trump declares NoKor a state sponsor of terror
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump declared North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism on Monday even as his top diplomat said Washington has not given up hope of a negotiated end to its nuclear standoff with Kim Jong-Un's regime.
Trump promised a rapid ramp-up of US Treasury sanctions against the pariah state, after adding its name to a terror blacklist previously led by Iran and Syria.
"Should have happened a long time ago. Should have happened years ago," Trump declared, citing the death of a US student who had been held in a North Korean jail and the assassination by nerve agent of Kim's elder half brother on foreign soil as reasons for the move.
But, speaking to reporters after the cabinet meeting, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Washington has not given up hope that sanctions and diplomacy can pressure Kim into agreeing to sit down and discuss his nuclear disarmament.
Tillerson said that punitive measures were already having a "significant effect" on Pyongyang's economy – even if China has yet to cut off oil supplies to its sole refinery – and said: "We still hope for diplomacy."
There was no immediate reaction from Pyongyang, but an editorial that appeared in the ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun before Trump's announcement described the president as a "mentally deranged money-grabber" who was leading the United States down an "irretrievable road to hell."
Both Trump and Kim have previously raised fears of open conflict erupting over the North's banned nuclear missile program, with both insulting and threatening the other with a devastating military response.
But US officials have also been clear that their main hope is that what Tillerson described as an inexorable increase in economic and diplomatic pressure – backed by China – will force Pyongyang to back down.
"We know that there are current shortages of fuel based upon what we can gather anecdotally and also from certain intelligence sources," Tillerson said.
"We know that their revenues are down," he said. "So I think it is having an effect. Is this the reason we haven't had a provocative act in 60 days?"
North Korea is already under a crushing package of United States and United Nations sanctions, and Monday's terror designation will not have much immediate economic impact.
But Trump said his declaration would kick off a twoweek period of announcements – starting on Tuesday with a "very large" US Treasury sanctions measure – that would eventually amount to a "maximum pressure campaign."
And US officials see the designation – which was removed by then-president George W. Bush in 2008 – as a way of ratcheting up pressure on other states and foreign banks that may be failing to fully enforce the sanctions already in place.