WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Monday that his administration is putting North Korea back on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, a mostly symbolic blow meant to deepen the diplomatic isolation of Kim Jong Un’s regime in Pyongyang.
Speaking to reporters as he opened a meeting with his Cabinet, Trump said the designation would trigger “further sanctions and penalties” and that it “supports our maximum pressure campaign to isolate the murderous regime.” The president added that the Treasury Department on Tuesday would announce additional punitive measures, part of a campaign “over the next two weeks” to tighten the economic and diplomatic vise on North Korea.
It was unclear what new sanctions the designation would unlock: The kinds of unilateral steps that it triggers, like a ban on U.S. economic aid or U.S. arms sales, are mostly irrelevant because North Korea already does not benefit from such assistance. But Trump could enable families of terrorism victims to file civil suits in U.S. courts.
“I don’t want to suggest to you that the designation is suddenly going to put a whole new layer of sanctions on them. Because again, I think, we already have North Korea so heavily sanctioned,” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in the White House briefing room after the announcement. “But this will close a few additional loopholes off.”
And the designation could put more pressure on countries like China, North Korea’s largest trading partner, to further sever business ties with the Stalinist regime.
Trump’s announcement came amid concerns that escalating tensions over North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs could spiral into war.
In his remarks, the president alluded to several factors behind the decision. He referred to North Korea carrying out assassinations on foreign soil. That appeared to be a reference to the Feb. 13 killing of Kim’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, dispatched at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia, widely believed to be the work of North Korean agents. And he cited the death of American student Otto Warmbier, jailed during a January 2016 trip to North Korea and released in June 2017 while in a coma. He died a few days later.
“As we take this action today, our thoughts turn to Otto Warmbier, wonderful young man, and the countless others brutally affected by the North Korean oppression,” the president said.
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