The Trump administration is facing mounting bipartisan calls to redesignate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism ahead of a congressionally mandated deadline.
Under a piece of sanctions legislation signed by Trump in August, the State Department must report to Congress by Tuesday on whether it will relist North Korea. Administration officials have described the designation as “very technical” and based on a statutory standard.
Lawmakers in both chambers of Congress have been ratcheting up pressure on the administration to re-designate North Korea.
“They were removed from the list almost a decade ago with promises from the regime to limit their nuclear program. That clearly didn’t happen,” Ohio senator Rob Portman said in a statement Thursday. “This would be one more important step to exert peaceful pressure on the North Korean regime.”
Portman and a bipartisan group of senators wrote to the State Department earlier in October imploring officials to “consider the totality of North Korea’s actions” in their deliberations. The senators pointed to North Korea’s weapons sales to other state sponsors of terrorism like Iran, its “abhorrent treatment of American citizens,” and the alleged assassination of Kim Jong-nam, Kim Jong-un’s half-brother, in Malaysia.
The Bush administration agreed to delist North Korea in 2008 during nuclear talks. The country has “consistently shown a disregard for international norms and agreements” in the nine years since, the senators said in their letter.
Top members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee also wrote to the State Department last week and argued that the Kim regime has exhibited a “consistent pattern” of “heinous acts.” They cited the “murderous mistreatment” of 22-year-old American citizen Otto Warmbier, as well as the kidnapping of foreign citizens. Warmbier’s parents have urged the State Department to relist Pyongyang.
In response to questions and pressure, administration officials have underscored that North Korea must meet a legal standard to be redesignated.
“As a matter of law, for any country to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, the secretary of state must determine that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” a State Department official told TWS. “The Department of State will take immediate action if credible evidence supports North Korea’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism under the statutory criteria.”
Designation as a state sponsor of terrorism triggers sanctions including restrictions on foreign assistance. House lawmakers argued in their letter that the designation “will further the case for our diplomatic and economic isolation campaign” against North Korea.
Critics of relisting argue that it could hurt the odds for a diplomatic solution to North Korea’s weapons tests. But proponents describe the move as overdue considering Pyongyang’s activities since 2008.
“North Korea will object to the determination, but it is not going to push North Korea toward additional provocations or hurt the chances of a negotiated settlement as both sides are locked in a dispute over the nature of those negotiations,” said Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
