The North Korea Sanctions Program is administered by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and is one of the most comprehensive country-based sanctions regimes maintained by the United States. It blocks the property and interests in property of the Government of North Korea and the Workers' Party of Korea, prohibits most exports and imports between the U.S. and North Korea, bans U.S. persons from approving or financing transactions by foreign persons that would be prohibited if performed by a U.S. person, and authorizes secondary sanctions against non-U.S. financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for designated parties.
The program rests on several overlapping legal authorities. Executive Orders 13466 (2008), 13551 (2010), 13570 (2011), 13687 (2015), 13722 (2016), and 13810 (2017) form the core of the U.S. domestic framework. Congress added statutory teeth through the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 (NKSPEA) and the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 (CAATSA), which mandated certain designations and expanded secondary-sanctions exposure for foreign banks. These measures sit alongside UN Security Council resolutions targeting Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic-missile programs, including resolutions 1718 (2006), 2270 (2016), 2321 (2016), 2371 (2017), 2375 (2017), and 2397 (2017).
Designations under the program appear on OFAC's Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN) List. Targets have included North Korean banks (e.g., Foreign Trade Bank), shipping companies, cyber actors such as the Lazarus Group, and third-country facilitators in China, Russia, and elsewhere. OFAC also issues sectoral guidance on coal, textiles, seafood, overseas laborers, and ship-to-ship transfers.
Limited licenses exist for humanitarian assistance, journalism, and certain personal remittances. Violations can trigger civil penalties or criminal prosecution under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Compliance is particularly relevant for banks, shipping insurers, and cryptocurrency exchanges given Pyongyang's documented use of illicit digital-asset theft.
Example
In 2019, OFAC designated two Chinese shipping companies—Dalian Haibo International Freight and Liaoning Danxing International Forwarding—for assisting North Korea in evading maritime sanctions.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, through secondary sanctions. Under CAATSA and NKSPEA, foreign financial institutions that knowingly facilitate significant transactions for designated North Korean parties can lose access to U.S. correspondent accounts.
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