US tightens sanctions on North Korea

Bloomberg

The US tightened its financial restrictions on North Korea, slapping sanctions on Chinese and Russian entities it accused of assisting Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. It’s also seeking millions of dollars it said moved through the US as part of the alleged scheme.
Prosecutors in Washington DC, are seeking to recover $11 million from companies based in China and Singapore that they accuse of conspiring with North Korea to evade sanctions. In complaints filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia, they said the companies laundered dollars through US accounts on behalf of sanctioned entities in North Korea.
The sanctions and forfeiture requests are the latest against third-country companies and individuals in an effort to exert greater economic pressure on Kim Jong Un’s regime, which has conducted regular missile and nuclear tests in defiance of United Nations resolutions and has developed weapons that may be capable of hitting the continental US President Donald Trump has sought to pressure China — North Korea’s top trading partner — to use greater leverage on its neighbor and ally, though Kim’s regime often makes decisions contrary to Beijing’s wishes.
“These complaints show our determination to stop North Korean sanctioned banks and their foreign financial facilitators from aiding North Korea in illegally accessing the United States financial system to obtain goods and services in the global market place,” said US Attorney Channing D. Phillips. “According to the complaints, these front companies are supporting sanctioned North Korean entities, including North Korean military and North Korean weapons programs.”

BLACKLISTED ENTITIES
The US Treasury added more than a dozen individuals and companies to its roster of blacklisted North Korea-related entities, an escalation of the Justice Department’s focus on tightening sanctions against Pyongyang.
Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control added six individuals and 10 companies and other entities to its sanctions list, saying they have helped people previously penalized for North Korea’s weapons program, facilitated North Korea’s energy sector and enabled entities to bypass sanctions to get access to the US and international financial system.
The new restrictions seek to further reduce the flow of money to North Korea’s weapons development, which is partially financed by selling coal and other natural resources. North Korea generates about $1 billion a year from the coal trade, according to the Treasury, which singled out three Chinese coal companies it said were responsible for importing almost a half-billion dollars in North Korean coal between 2013 and 2016.
“Treasury will continue to put pressure on North Korea by targeting those who support the advancement of nuclear and ballistic missile programs and isolating them from the American financial system,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement accompanying the sanctions announcement. As part of the announcement, three Russian individuals and two Singapore-based companies were accused of providing oil to North Korea.
The sanctions drew the ire of Russia, which already is at odd with the US over its annexation of Crimea and interference in the American presidential election. Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in a statement on the ministry’s website that the sanctions against the Russian individuals continues a trend damaging the US-Russia relationship. He warned that Russia would develop unspecified “counter-measures inevitable in this situation.” In early July, after tensions with Pyongyang escalated, US prosecutors disclosed their effort to seize millions of dollars linked to North Korean entities from eight global banks.
In lawsuits filed in Washington, prosecutors outline how a web of front companies — some run by Russian nationals — were used by North Korean banks, including the country’s government-owned Foreign Trade Bank, or FTB, to launder money through transactions involving coal and oil. In one of the lawsuits, US prosecutors allege that Singapore-based Velmur Management Pte. Ltd and Transatlantic Partners Pte. Ltd. laundered US dollars for sanctioned North Korean banks that were seeking to buy petroleum products from JSC Independent Petroleum Company, a blacklisted entity based in Russia.

Trump: North Korea’s Kim starting to respect America

Bloomberg

President Donald Trump said North Korean leader Kim
Jong Un is beginning to respect the US, the latest comments that suggest his administration is moving closer to seeking talks over Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
“I respect the fact that I believe he is starting to respect us,” Trump said of Kim at a rally in Phoenix, Arizona. “Maybe, probably not, something positive will come out of it.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went out of his way to note that North Korea hadn’t carried out “provocative acts” since the UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on the country.
“I am pleased to see that the regime in Pyongyang has
certainly demonstrated some level of restraint that we have not seen in the past,” Tillerson told reporters at the State Department. “Perhaps we are seeing our pathway to sometime in the near future having some dialogue.”
Tillerson volunteered the remarks on North Korea without prompting at a briefing that was arranged to discuss the Trump administration’s new approach to Afghanistan. That suggested his intent was to give Kim Jong Un’s regime an opening and a signal.
The comments by Tillerson, the top US diplomat, were far more conciliatory than previous warnings from Trump, who said earlier this month that further threats from Kim’s regime would be met with “fire and fury.” Kim has pledged to develop a nuclear missile that could hit the US mainland.