SECRETARY REX TILLERSON: Thanks, Sarah.
And as Sarah indicated, the President
did make the designation earlier today,
announced it in the cabinet meeting.
And I think it's really just the latest
step in a series of, as you can see, ongoing steps,
to increase the pressure.
I call it the peaceful pressure campaign,
the President calls it the maximum pressure campaign.
So there's no confusion, they're one in the same.
And I think this is though, to hold
North Korea accountable for a number of actions
that they've taken over the last several months, the last year
or so.
Some of you will know that North Korea
was designated as a state sponsor of terrorism
back in 1988.
So they have been designated before.
That designation was lifted in 2008 as part of an effort
to negotiate with North Korea an end to their nuclear program.
That obviously failed them because we
can see where we are today.
But as a result of actions they've taken,
including assassination--
assassinations outside of their country,
using banned chemical weapons.
These are all very, very serious actions
on their part that put the public at risk as well.
So that along with a number of other actions
that they've taken, resulted in their designation
now again as a state sponsor of terrorism.
I think as Sarah indicated, the practical effect of it is,
it all-- we already have many of these actions in place
through the current sanctions.
It may, though, disrupt and dissuade some third parties
from undertaking certain activities with North Korea,
as it does impose prohibition on a number of other activities
that might not be covered by existing sanctions.
But I think, importantly, this is just
continuing to point out North Korea's
illicit unlawful behaviors internationally,
and we felt it necessary to reimpose the designation
for that reason.
So with that, happy to take questions.
And I'm going to let Sarah referee, because I'm
no good at refereeing.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, sir.
Is this move an intent to incentivize Kim Jong
Un towards negotiations?
I think it's been more than 60 days since we've
seen some kind of test.
Do you think think that that timetable
is in any way promising?
And why wait until we were back in the U.S.?
The President said that there was hope for diplomacy when
we were in Asia, and this seems to be counter that.
SECRETARY TILLERSON: No, we still hope for diplomacy.
And this is-- the timing of this is just one of us concluding
the process.
There is a very specific designation process
that we have to go through at the State Department
to be able to meet the criteria to make such a designation,
and we wanted to ensure we had fully
met all those requirements.
Again, this is all part of just continuing
to turn this pressure up.
And we continue to turn the pressure up on North Korea
by getting other countries to join and take
actions on their own.
We've had other countries in our visit to Vietnam,
they have committed that they're going to curtail activities
further with North Korea.
Malaysia has indicated or curtailments,
Singapore has cut off all trade with North Korea,
the Philippines have cut off all trade.
And just recently the Deputy Secretary of State's
been in Africa, he had meetings with the Sudanese government.
The Sudanese government have traditionally
been buying military weapons from North Korea.
They now have agreed to halt all those purchases as well.
So this being-- taking effect all around the world.
And we think as it takes effect, again
this just continues to tighten the pressure on the Kim regime.
All with an intention to have him
understand this is only going to get worse until you're
ready to come and talk.
AUDIENCE: Specific to the 60 day window,
he hasn't tested in some time, you
don't think this will trigger--
SECRETARY TILLERSON: We're hopeful that he continues
this quiet period, that's our objective is that he will
continue to be quiet as well.
This designation as I said, is one
that we're required to undertake from time to time
and we've been monitoring the situation.
We wanted to be sure we had sufficient evidence
before making the designation.
So this is a process that started actually
several months ago.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, Secretary.
You mentioned that you're intent to increase
regional pressure against the North Korean regime.
Do you have any indication that that is working?
And if you haven't seen those indications just yet,
how long do you go down this path
before the Administration has to again change its strategies?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, we get
a lot of anecdotal information that it is working
and then we do have our own intelligence sources as well.
And then what the Chinese and others share with us
that I think the general belief is it
is having a significant effect on North Korea.
We know that there are current shortages of fuel based
upon what we can gather from anecdotally, but also
from certain intel sources.
We know that enough-- that their revenues are down
because a number of revenue streams
are being curtailed now.
So I think it is having an effect.
Is this the reason we haven't had
a provocative act in 60 days?
I don't want to suggest to you that that I could say,
but we're hopeful this period will continue.
And, again, I think the President
in his address in Seoul, South Korea to the General Assembly,
I thought he laid out the case very well to them
that he wanted them to come have talks
because he wants to deliver a different future
to the people of North Korea.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
I have a couple for you.
The first is, can you give us an example
of a third-party transaction that is now
covered that was not covered by either existing
American sanctions or the the U.N. Security
Council sanctions?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well there could be certain dual use
equipment that may not have been covered
under previous sanctions that this would prohibit now,
a third party selling that dual use.
And so, and again, I don't want to suggest to you
that the designation is suddenly going
to put a whole new layer of sanctions on them
because again, I think we already
have North Korea so heavily sanctioned
in so many ways with the U.N. Resolutions
that have been undertaken.
But this will close a few additional loopholes off.
AUDIENCE: And then, you and the President
have both referred to assassinations, plural.
We obviously all know about Kim Jong-nam assassination
at the airport.
Can you give us another example of another assassination
on foreign soil?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: I don't have anything
that I can share with you specifically.
AUDIENCE: Thanks.
There seems to be more unilateral U.S. Sanctions
against North Korea on the way.
The Treasury is going to announce it [INAUDIBLE]..
Have you given up on getting China
to agree to an oil embargo?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: We've not given up,
and let me say this with China, we continue to talk with them.
First, to ensure that they are fully committed to implementing
all the U.N. sanctions, and they have assured us they are.
Which as you will recall, the last round of sanctions
imposed a pretty severe restriction on the import
of finished products.
So fuels, petroleum, diesel jet fuel, and whatnot.
But we have suggested to them, look,
you control that oil pipeline that feeds their refinery.
You don't, you know, you can do that unilaterally on your own
if you want to increase that pressure.
Whether they're doing that or not, we don't know
and it's very difficult for us to know
whether they're taking actions to curtail
oil supplies to them.
AUDIENCE: Secretary, earlier today, President Trump
said that the Treasury Department
is going to be announcing additional sanctions tomorrow,
he described it as a very large one,
the highest level of sanctions.
Can you give us any insight into what those additional sanctions
may be?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I'd like to leave it to Treasury
to announce those tomorrow.
They're similar to sanctions we've taken in the past.
We're just going out much more broadly now to more entities.
But I'd like to leave it to their announcement
tomorrow, not jump the gun on them.
AUDIENCE: And do you all see today's announcement
as more symbolic, or as something that really
does have a lot of teeth to it?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, I think
it is very symbolic on the one hand
because it just points out again what a rogue regime this is,
and how brutal this regime is, and how little they care
for the value of human life.
So I think if in that, in and of itself
I think makes a strong statement, just
the nature of this regime.
As I've said the practical effects may
be limited but we hopefully we're
closing off a few loopholes with this.
MARA LIASSON: Thank you, Mr. Secretary,
Mara Liasson from NPR.
If China does not agree to cut off oil shipments to North
Korea, how can you possibly get enough pressure on them
to come--
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well, their fuel supplies
are already quite constrained.
And as I said, we have evidence that there are
fuel shortages in North Korea.
Obviously the civilians are by and large the ones that
can't get fuel, so we see long lines
of vehicles at petrol stations.
We see certain petrol stations that appear to be out of fuel
because they're closed, when normally they'd be open.
So there are indications that fuel supplies are already
quite tight.
As you know, they only refine a small amount of their fuel
needs internally.
They only have one refinery that operates.
It operates at a low capacity, so they
were heavily dependent on imports of finished fuel
products which have been constrained significantly
with the U.N. Sanctions.
MARA LIASSON: But is the Chinese action essential?
In other words, do we need China to cut off
those oil shipments to--
SECRETARY TILLERSON: I don't know that you--
I don't know that oil, that the cutting off of oil
is the magic wand or the silver bullet that is going
to bring them to the table.
What I would say is that the North Koreans have demonstrated
in the past they have an enormous capacity
to withstand a lot.
They'll make their people pay, but they
have an enormous capacity to withstand a lot.
So I don't want to suggest that we
think that one action is all it would
take to get them to the table.
MARGARET TALEV: Margaret Talev, with Bloomberg.
Thanks for the welcome, I've returned many times.
I want to pick up on Olivia's question
about the assassinations.
Was-- how determinative was that in the specific evidence
they used to make this determination?
I also wanted to ask you, I think you
and Ambassador Haley both spent some time with the President.
That's unusual, I know she was in town today,
can you tell us a little bit about that meeting,
and any substance that came out of it?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: On the assassinations,
the assassination in Malaysia was a significant event
that caused us to really begin to look carefully at what else
they might have been doing.
Because you know that assassination involved
the use of a chemical agent, a very dangerous agent
in a public place.
And so, that really got our attention.
One of the things that we wanted to ensure
is that we had sufficient certainty around their role
in that particular assassination and so we've
been working with Malaysian authorities as well
and been in conversation with them.
Wanted to let them have their own process,
obviously, play out as well.
With respect to Ambassador Haley and I,
we were just both in the cabinet meeting today.
MS. TALEV: Was the--
I know without getting too much into it,
there had been a suggestion from the North Korean media
about some violence directed toward the U.S. President.
Was that a determinative factor at all
that you used to make a designation.
SECRETARY TILLERSON: No.
PETER BAKER: Peter Baker, New York Times.
You've talked about assassination on foreign soil
using a chemical agent.
Russia has been accused of assassination on foreign soil,
including using polonium in London should
they be considered for the same sort of designation?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: I think we have
to consider every country that would
take a substance like that and use it illegally.
MR. BAKER: Is there a process like that
going on right now with Russia?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: I don't want to comment on that.
TREY YINGST: Thank you, Mr. Secretery.
Trey Yingst, with One America News.
Two quick questions for you.
How do you balance the impact of sanctions,
like you talked about the people of North Korea
paying the price.
Is that something you're considering
when you talk about more sanctions towards the regime
of Kim Jong Un.
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well it's always a difficult choice
you make when you impose sanctions
in terms of who's really going to bear the burden here.
The truth of the matter is the people of North Korea
already live under enormously difficult conditions.
And I think what we're focused on is a mission that's
going to change North Korea's trajectory, change their path.
That's the best way we can help the North Korean people
in the future, is to have Kim Jong Un reverse
his nuclear weapons program, allow us
and the rest of the world to then engage
with them with economic activity that will ultimately provide
a better life for his people.
TREY YINGST: My follow-up question,
do you believe that the United States is running out
of diplomatic options to respond to the nuclear threat of North
Korea?
SECRETARY TILLERSON: No, I do not.
SARAH HUCKABEE-SANDERS: We've got time for one last question.
John [INAUDIBLE] in the back.
AUDIENCE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
You talked about the limited intelligence on North Korea
and on the regime.
Is there any evidence of any dissent in Pyongyang at all,
or possibly reaction against the current government
by other members of the Kim family, even,
or other opponents to him.
SECRETARY TILLERSON: Well I want to be a little careful
about how I answer that.
What I would comment on, as you're
well aware of a number of executions that have occurred
within his inner circle, and within many
of the military people that are close to him.
So I'll leave it to your own interpretation.