Trump Administration Slaps New Sanctions on North Korea

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration unfurled new sanctions on Wednesday targeting North Korea and its weapons program, underscoring the aggressive approach that President Donald Trump has promised to take against the government of Kim Jong Un.

The new sanctions, released by the Treasury Department, target North Korean and Chinese trading companies, North Korean ships and North Korea’s ministry of oil. They also hit North Korean representatives in China and Russia who are members of the Workers’ Party of Korea and who have helped North Korea transfer chemicals and equipment used for weapons production.

“Treasury continues to systematically target individuals and entities financing the Kim regime and its weapons programs, including officials complicit in North Korean sanctions evasion schemes,” Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said in a statement.

Mnuchin said that, in accord with United Nations Security Council resolutions, he also is calling on Russia and China to expel anyone working in their countries on behalf of North Korea’s financial networks.

The moves come as the White House has been ratcheting up pressure on North Korea following a fiery exchange between Trump and Kim earlier this year in which Trump declared on Twitter that America’s nuclear arsenal is “much bigger” and more powerful than Kim’s. The saber-rattling renewed fears about the prospect of war and raised questions about whether such a bombastic approach was the best way to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

In recent weeks, however, Trump has suggested that he might be willing to hold direct talks with Kim. He also voiced his support for the political thaw between North and South Korea, which have agreed to march their athletes together under one flag at the Winter Olympics in South Korea in February.

The United States has been working systematically to undermine North Korea’s nuclear ambitions by curbing the financing behind its weapons program.

This week, Sigal Mandelker, Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, traveled to Asia to hold talks with officials in Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul about ways to combat North Korea’s illicit financing and money-laundering practices. During a stop in Hong Kong on Wednesday, she urged the Chinese to do more to crack down on shell companies that North Koreans set up in other countries and use to evade sanctions.

In testimony before Congress last week, Mandelker noted that North Korea has been using cover representatives and front companies to hide and transfer funds that finance its weapons program.

Sanctions experts have suggested that the United States faces limited options targeting North Korea’s illicit financing schemes because of the broad swath of sanctions that already have been imposed on the isolated Asian nation. The designation Wednesday of two Chinese trading companies, Beijing Chengxing Trading Co. Ltd. and Dandong Jinxiang Trade Co., Ltd., signals that the Treasury Department is looking more broadly for ways to squeeze North Korea.

“The Chinese trading companies that were targeted are the most interesting,” said Mike Casey, a sanctions expert at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis International. “Even though the U.S. hasn’t been able to get a ton of direct economic pressure on North Korea, it certainly hasn’t given up on exerting indirect economic pressure on North Korea.”

The sanctions enable the United States to freeze the assets of the people or businesses that are designated and blocks Americans from doing business with them.