The United States Department of The Treasury on Friday said it had imposed sanctions on 27 entities, 28 vessels, and an individual in North Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Marshall Islands, Tanzania, Panama, and Comoros. The department called its action the “largest North Korea-related sanctions tranche to date”.
Earlier, US President Donald Trump had said that the Treasury Department would soon take action to further cut off sources of fuel and revenue that Pyongyang uses to fund its nuclear weapons programme and sustain its military expenditure.
After the new sanctions were imposed, Trump said that if the sanctions failed to curtail Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, there would be a “phase two” that would be “very, very unfortunate for the world”, Reuters reported.
“It [North Korea] really is a rogue nation,” the president told reporters during a joint appearance with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in Washington DC, The Guardian reported. “If we can make a deal it will be a great thing. If we can’t, something will have to happen.”
The US also proposed a list of entities which could be blacklisted under separate United Nations sanctions. The government said these proposals were “aimed at shutting down North Korea’s illicit maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal.”
In September 2017, the UN Security Council had imposed new sanctions on North Korea, including a nearly 90%-ban on refined products, which are key to country’s economy.
US-North Korea ties
This is the latest in a series of sanctions imposed on Pyongyang since last year.
Tensions between the North Korean regime, led by Kim Jong-un, and the United States escalated in 2017 as Pyongyang has stepped up its nuclear efforts. Donald Trump has warned North Korea a number of times against boosting its nuclear weapons programme. The two leaders frequently trade ridicule, insults and threats at each other.
In July, Pyongyang twice launched a long-range missile that could potentially reach the US mainland. In September, it conducted its sixth atomic explosion. On November 28, North Korea launched an intercontinental ballistic missile, possibly the country’s longest-range test yet. It claimed this one had the capability to reach all of America.
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