FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump launched a new phase of a crackdown on North Korea on Thursday [9-22-17], expanding sanctions to hit any individuals, companies and financial institutions doing business with Pyongyang, not only those involved in aiding its weapons program or laundering funds…
President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order giving the U.S. Treasury Department the power to sanction any entity involved with North Korean trade or finance, freeze the U.S. assets of foreign banks working with the country and ban those institutions from accessing U.S. financial markets.
The action steps ups Washington’s effort to strangle financing to the nuclear-armed state in the face of repeated missile tests by the Kim regime…
The presidential order authorizes Treasury to target a broad swath of North Korean trade, including textile and seafood exports, technology, and shipping networks. North Korean defectors, U.S. officials and analysts all have said those trade and finance networks are funneling cash into the country’s nuclear-weapon and intercontinental-ballistic-missile programs.”
-Ian Talley and Louise Radnofsky, “Trump Expands U.S. Sanctions on Dealings With North Korea,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 21, 2017 07:35pm