FOREIGN POLICY/NORTH KOREA/TREASURY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The United States added eight North Korean banks and 26 individuals operating in four countries to its sanctions blacklist on Tuesday [9-26-17], part of an intensified effort to starve North Korea financially in response to the country’s nuclear weapons and missile testing.
The action by the Treasury Department came less than a week after President Trump announced an executive order that broadly expanded the punitive economic measures he can apply against North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and his subordinates.
A Treasury statement said the sanctions singled out North Koreans working in China, Russia, Libya and the United Arab Emirates. Nineteen of the 26 North Koreans under sanctions are in China, underscoring the dependence of North Korea on its Chinese economic connections.
The penalties also reflected the reach of North Korea’s financial network despite an onerous array of restrictions already imposed on the country by the United States and the United Nations over the testing, which the Security Council has declared illegal.
He said the sanctions were imposed to complement a Security Council resolution on Sept. 11 that represented the strongest penalties yet imposed by the world body on North Korea for its repeated nuclear and missile tests over the past decade.”
-Rick Gladstone, “North Korean Banks and Citizens Added to U.S. Sanctions List,” The New York Times online, Sept. 26, 2017