Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin declared on Wednesday that he has an executive order ready to go with which the U.S. would implement sanctions on countries that conduct trade with North Korea, should the United Nations not be able to pass new penalties.
Mnuchin told reporters on Air Force One, heading back to Washington from a stop in North Dakota, that the current situation in North Korea is “not acceptable” and that said the U.S. is ready to act if the U.N. fails to administer additional sanctions on Pyonyang over its nuclear weapons and missile program.
“If we don’t get these additional sanctions at the UN, as I mentioned over the weekend, I have an executive order prepared, that’s ready to go to the president that will authorize to stop doing trade and put sanctions on anybody that does trade with North Korea,” Mnuchin said Wednesday to reporters.
The U.S. and its allies are pushing to cut off oil supplies to North Korea, according to The New York Times. That could, however, get shot down in the U.N. by a veto from Russia or China. Russian President Vladimir Putin has rejected the idea and China is North Korea’s main source of oil.
Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, slammed the U.N. on Monday for unsuccessfully restraining North Korea’s nuclear weapons program after the country conducted its sixth nuclear weapons test on Sunday.
“To the members of the security council, I must say, enough is enough,” Haley said at an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council in New York. “We have taken an incremental approach, and despite the best of intentions, it has not worked.”
“The U.S. will look at every country that does business with North Korea as a country that is giving aide to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions,” she added.
Just last month, the U.N. did pass new sanctions against North Korea in response to North Korean aggression.
These sanctions ban North Korean exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead ore, and seafood. Additionally, they place added constraints on the country’s Foreign Trade Bank, prohibits North Korea from increasing the number of workers sent abroad, and places a limit on new investments and new joint ventures in North Korea, according to The New York Times.
