Trump slaps North Korea with new sanctions over human-rights abuses
SUMMARY
The Treasury Department issued fresh sanctions against North Korea Oct. 26, following a new State Department report on human rights abuses by Kim Jong Un's regime.
The sanctions against seven individuals and three entities, including the North Korean government, freeze any property within US jurisdiction and prohibit any transactions by US citizens with those targeted.
The sanctioned entities include the Workers' Party of Korea.
"North Korea is run by a brutal regime that continues to engage in serious human rights abuses," said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. "We are especially concerned with the North Korean military, which operates as secret police, punishing all forms of dissent. Further, the military operates outside of North Korea to hunt down asylum seekers, and brutally detains and forcibly returns North Korean citizens."
The action comes about one week before President Trump embarks on his first trip to Asia, where he will visit Japan, South Korea, and China to hold discussions on curbing North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Mr. Mnuchin said the sanctions "target the North Korean military and regime officials engaged in flagrant abuses of human rights."
"We also are targeting North Korean financial facilitators who attempt to keep the regime afloat with foreign currency earned through forced labor operations," he said.
In September, the Treasury Department leveled sanctions against eight North Korean banks and 26 people linked to the country's financial networks, seeking to curb Pyongyang's belligerence.
The Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said the new sanctions are aimed at North Korea's Military Security Command and two of its top officials, Jo Kyong-Chol and Sin Yong Il, and Ri Thae Chol, the country's first vice minister of the Ministry of People's Security.
Also sanctioned are Ku Sung Sop, the consul general in Shenyang, China, and Kim Min Chol, an official in the North Korean Embassy in Vietnam.