NEW YORK — President Donald Trump announced a new set of sanctions on North Korea Thursday, saying the executive action would target individuals and companies that engage in finance and trade with the isolated communist nation.
“It is unacceptable that others financially support this criminal rogue regime,” Trump said ahead of a working lunch with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
The executive order Trump inked just ahead of the lunch enhances US Treasury Department authorities to target individuals who provide goods, services or technology to North Korea, Trump said.
He said the order would also allow the US to identify new industries — including textiles, fishing and manufacturing — as potential targets for future actions.
“Tolerance for this disgraceful practice must end now,” he said of providing resources to North Korea.
He also praised actions taken Thursday by Chinese President Xi Jinping to tamp down on financial relations with North Korea through its central bank.
The new sanctions come two days after Trump threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea if it continues to threaten the United States and its allies.
Trump insists that military options are on the table for dealing with North Korea, but his aides have said diplomacy is the preferred outlet for containing the nuclear crisis.
The United Nations Security Council has approved multiple rounds of sanctions on North Korea, including on its exports. But they have yet to stop the communist nation’s leader Kim Jong Un from launching ballistic missile tests.
During talks Thursday with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, Trump is expected to reiterate that military options are available in retaliation for North Korean threats.
That’s likely to draw a rebuke from Moon, who has ruled out military action and issued warnings on the ramped-up rhetoric coming from Washington.
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