US slaps sanctions on China, Russia over North Korea
New curbs will affect six individuals and 10 organisations
The Trump administration announced new sanctions against China and Russia yesterday as part of its campaign to pressure North Korea to stop its development of nuclear weapons and missiles.
The new sanctions affect six individuals and 10 organisations with financial ties to Pyongyang’s weapons program. Tension between the United States and North Korea has escalated over North Korea’s recent missile tests.
“It is unacceptable for individuals and companies in China, Russia, and elsewhere to enable North Korea to generate income used to develop weapons of mass destruction and destabilise the region,” Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in a statement yesterday.
In June, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on a Chinese bank, a Chinese company and two Chinese citizens to crack down on the financing of North Korea’s weapons program.
“I think it’s a significant action by the Trump administration,” Anthony Ruggiero, a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, a non-profit group in Washington, said of the new round of sanctions.
Yesterday’s actions appeared to be part of a larger campaign to pressure individuals, businesses and countries with financial ties to North Korea, said Ruggiero, a former official in the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes at the Treasury. Among the Chinese companies sanctioned yesterday is Mingzheng International Trading Ltd., considered by the Treasury Department to be a “front company” for North Korea’s state-run Foreign Trade Bank, which has been subject to US sanctions since 2013.
Earlier this month, the UN Security Council passed its toughest sanctions against North Korea. And the next day, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson met with his counterparts in South Korea and China in an effort to increase pressure against Pyongyang.
The new US sanctions address how other nations tolerate North Korea’s behaviour, particularly China, said Elizabeth Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Centre for New American Security in Washington.