US to announce new sanctions on North Korea

The Trump administration will announce more sanctions to deprive Pyongyang of funds for its nuclear and missile programs after adding North Korea on the US terror blacklist. 

|
Evan Vucci/AP
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson listens as President Trump announces that the United States will designate North Korea a state sponsor of terrorism during a cabinet meeting at the White House on Nov. 20, 2017, in Washington.

The Trump administration plans to announce Tuesday new sanctions on North Korea, after declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism in the latest push to isolate the pariah nation.

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 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," Mr. Trump said.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday the pressure campaign was starting to bite in Pyongyang, which is already facing unprecedented United Nations-mandated sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. Mr. 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.

Mr. 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 US from North Korea" and could even prompt the North to resume missile tests.

In September, Trump opened the way for the US 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 US 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 or other companies violating the September order.

A potential target would be Chinese banks that serve as North Korea's conduit to the international system. Such a move would irk Beijing, whose help Trump is counting on to put an economic squeeze on Pyongyang. China recently sent its highest-level envoy to North Korea in two years to discuss the tense state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula.

Tillerson urged China, which accounts for 90 percent of North Korea's external trade, to take unilateral steps to cut fuel supplies to its wayward neighbor. China, which is calling for dialogue to ease the nuclear tensions, is reluctant to exert economic pressure that could destabilize the North.

Tillerson acknowledged a two-month pause in the North's rapid tempo of nuclear and missile tests and said there was still hope for diplomacy. With tougher sanctions in the offing, he warned Kim, "This is only going to get worse until you're ready to come and talk."

The terror designation, however, is likely to exacerbate sour relations between Washington and Pyongyang that have turned uglier with name-calling between Trump and Kim. North Korea shows no interest 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.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to US to announce new sanctions on North Korea
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2017/1121/US-to-announce-new-sanctions-on-North-Korea
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe