By David Nakamura

THE WASHINGTON POST,  November 20, 2017 — President Trump on Monday announced that his administartion has re-designated North Korea as a state sponsor of terror, a move aimed at increasing pressure on Pyongyang a decade after the George W. Bush administration removed the rogue nation from the list.

Trump made his decision public during a brief photo op at a Cabinet meeting, calling it “a very critical step” that “should’ve happened a long time ago.” The president cited assassinations by dictator Kim Jong Un’s regime carried out on foreign soil, as well as the treatment of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died in June days after he was released in a coma by the North after spending 17 months in captivity.

Trump vowed that Pyongyang will face further sanctions in the near future and that this will be the “highest level of sanctions by the time it’s finished.
The White House had signaled during Trump’s recent Asia trip that the president was likely to make the designation. During the trip, Trump told reporters that he plans to decide “very soon” whether to put the North back on the state sponsor of terrorism list. The North spent 10 years on that list before being removed in 2008 by the Bush administration for meeting nuclear inspection requirements. Pyongyang later violated the agreement.
Iran, Sudan and Syria also are on the list. According to the State Department, sanctions for those nations on the list include “restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; certain controls over exports of dual use items; and miscellaneous financial and other restrictions.”