US rolls out new curbs on N. Korea
Washington, Feb. 24: US President Donald Trump has rolled out fresh sanctions against North Korea- linked shipping assets, hailing the package as the “heaviest sanctions ever” levied on the Pyongyang regime.
Mr Trump used a speech to conservatives just outside Washington to step up his campaign of “maximum pressure” designed to force North Korea to roll back its weapons programmes.
“We imposed today the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before,” Mr Trump claimed at the end of a lengthy campaign- style address on Friday.
In light of past US embargoes, that is likely an overstatement, but Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin confirmed the sanctions covered “virtually all the ships” North Korea is “using at this moment in time.”
Speaking to reporters in Pyeongchang on Saturday during a visit to the Winter Olympics, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said: “Hopefully we’ll see a change on the part of the North Koreans to start to denuclearise the peninsula, that’s what our focus is.” She added: “I can tell you the President won’t make the mistakes the previous administration has and be soft or weak.”
Mr Trump’s administration is locked in a nuclear standoff with Pyongyang, which is trying to develop missiles that could deliver an atomic weapon to major US cities.
The latest sanctions are designed to put the squeeze on North Korea’s already precarious economy and fuel supply.