N. Korea to face more sanctions
Trump administration makes move a day after declaring nation a state sponsor of terrorism
WASHINGTON » The Trump administration readied new sanctions Tuesday on North Korea, a day after declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism in a move to put additional pressure on Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
North Korea has joined Iran, Sudan and Syria on America’s terror blacklist, a largely symbolic step as the administration already has the authority to impose virtually any sanctions it wants on Kim Jong Un’s government over its nuclear weapons development.
As part of its “maximum pressure” campaign, President Donald Trump said the Treasury Department would impose more sanctions on North Korea and “related persons” starting Tuesday, without hinting who or what would be targeted. The move is part of rolling effort to deprive Pyongyang of funds for its nuclear and missile programs and leave it internationally isolated.
“It will be the highest level of sanctions by the time it’s finished over a two-week period,” Trump said.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday the pressure campaign was starting to bite in Pyongyang, which is already facing unprecedented U.N.-mandated sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Tillerson said anecdotal evidence and intelligence suggests the North is now suffering fuel shortages, with queues at gas stations, and its revenues are down.
The United States has been applying sanctions of its own as well.
In Tokyo, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe welcomed the move, telling reporters Japan supports the step as a way to increase pressure on North Korea. But Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang expressed concern.
Lu said Tuesday that the situation is “highly sensitive” and that it would be “helpful to bring all parties back to the negotiation table instead of doing the opposite.”
Da Zhigang, a North Korea expert at the Heilongjiang Academy of Social Sciences, said the move “will arouse diplomatic reactions and hatred toward the U.S. from North Korea” and could even prompt the North to resume missile tests.
An editorial Tuesday in North Korea’s ruling party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, called Trump a “heinous criminal” who had insulted the dignity of the country’s supreme leadership and its socialist system during his recent visit to South Korea. The editorial, carried by the staterun news agency, threatened “merciless punishment.” It did not mention the terror designation.
In September, Trump opened the way for the U.S. to punish foreign companies dealing with North Korea. He issued an executive order expanding the Treasury Department’s ability to target anyone conducting significant trade in goods, services or technology with the North, and to ban them from interacting with the U.S. financial system.
Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow on Northeast Asia at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said Treasury could be preparing more designations against North Korean entities related to the terrorism listing, or possibly Chinese Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talks to reporters during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, in Washington, Monday. or other companies violat-dialogue to ease the nuclear ing the September order. tensions, is reluctant to ex
A potential target would ert economic pressure that be Chinese banks that serve could destabilize the North. as North Korea’s conduit to Tillerson acknowledged the international system. a two-month pause in the Such a move would irk BeiNorth’s rapid tempo of nujing, whose help Trump is clear and missile tests and counting on to put an ecosaid there was still hope for nomic squeeze on Pyongdiplomacy. With tougher yang. China recently sent sanctions in the offing, he its highest-level envoy to warned Kim, “This is only North Korea in two years going to get worse until to discuss the tense state of you’re ready to come and affairs on the Korean Pentalk.” insula. The terror designation,
Tillerson urged China, however, is likely to exacerwhich accounts for 90 perbate sour relations between cent of North Korea’s exterWashington and Pyongnal trade, to take unilateral yang that have turned ugsteps to cut fuel supplies lier with name- calling beto its wayward neighbor. tween Trump and Kim. China, which is calling for North Korea shows no in- terest in talks aimed at getting it to give up its nukes.
North Korea has been on and off the terror list over the years. It was designated for two decades because of its involvement in international terror attacks in the 1980s, then taken off in 2008 to smooth the way for nuclear talks that soon failed.