BREAKING: POTUS announces executive order that expands authorities to target individuals, companies that facilitate trade with North Korea. pic.twitter.com/OxjAJ0lRfD
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) September 21, 2017
On the heels of his boisterous remarks before the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced as new executive order concerning North Korea’s reported efforts to avoid previous sanctions. During a formal address given before several American, South Korean and Japanese flags, Trump told reporters he had “just signed” the order, which “significantly expands our authority to target individuals, companies [and] financial institutions that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea.” Calling the country’s nuclear missile program a “grave threat,” he insisted others’ support of it was “unacceptable.”
According to Politico, the president told journalists earlier that morning that the United States would “be putting more sanctions on North Korea” but didn’t specify when or how. In August, the treasury department issued strict sanctions against China for its continued economic involvement with the volatile country. More recently, U.S. and North Korean authorities have traded numerous barbs at one another in the media — especially after the former pressured the U.N. to vote on even more serious sanctions.
This executive order, however, presents the Trump administration’s harshest stance yet. Just before the press conference, China’s central bank reportedly ordered its subsidiaries to stop doing business with North Korea. The president commended the move, but not before delivering a few more pointed comments regard his new executive order and his White House’s position on the matter. “Foreign banks will face a clear choice: do business with the United States or facilitate trade with the lawless regime in North Korea,” he said. “The regime can no longer count on others to facilitate its trade and banking activities.”