NEW YORK: US President Donald Trump ordered new sanctions on Thursday that open the door wider to blacklisting people and entities doing business with North Korea, including its shipping and trade networks, further tightening the screws on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programme.

Trump stopped short of going after North Korea’s biggest trading partner, China, and praised its central bank for ordering Chinese banks to stop doing business with North Korea.

Pyongyang has resisted international pressure, conducting its sixth and largest nuclear test on Sept 3, and launching numerous missiles this year, including two intercontinental ballistic missiles and two other rockets that flew over Japan.

“Today I’m announcing a new executive order, just signed, that significantly expands our authority to target individual companies, financial institutions, that finance and facilitate trade with North Korea,” Trump told reporters ahead of a luncheon meeting with the leaders of Japan and South Korea. “Our new executive order will cut off sources of revenue that fund North Korea’s efforts to develop the deadliest weapons known to humankind.”

Trump said North Korea’s textiles, fishing, information technology, and manufacturing industries were among those the United States could target. He said the order enhanced the US Treasury Department’s authority to target those that conduct “significant trade in goods, services or technology with North Korea”. “For much too long North Korea has been allowed to abuse the international financial system to facilitate funding for its nuclear weapons and missile programmes,” Trump said. Trump did not mention Pyongyang’s oil trade. Four sources told Reuters China’s central bank has told banks to strictly implement United Nations sanctions against North Korea.

The UN Security Council has unanimously imposed nine rounds of sanctions on North Korea since 2006, the latest earlier this month capping fuel supplies to the isolated state.

South Korea reaction

Earlier on Thursday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, sitting with Trump and their respective delegations, said the US president’s warning to Pyongyang in his speech at the UN on Tuesday “will also help to change North Korea”. Trump warned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his address that the United States, if threatened, would “totally destroy” his country of 26 million people.

It was Trump’s most direct military threat to attack North Korea and his latest expression of concern about Pyongyangs repeated launching of ballistic missiles over Japan and underground nuclear tests. North Korea’s foreign minister likened Trump to a “barking dog” in response.

On Thursday, South Korea’s Moon said sanctions were needed to bring Pyongyang to the negotiating table and force it to give up its nuclear weapons, but Seoul was not seeking North Korea’s collapse. “All of our endeavours are to prevent war from breaking out and maintain peace,” Moon said in his speech to the UN General Assembly.

Published in Dawn, September 22nd, 2017