Trump vows more sanctions on North Korea

President Trump told reporters on Thursday that he’ll be looking to impose further financial penalties on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic tests.

“We will be putting more sanctions on North Korea,” Trump said at a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani at the United Nations.

The remark came in response to a shouted question from a reporter, and the president did not elaborate on whether he would be immediately proposing further sanctions to the U.N. or what the penalties might look like.

The U.N. has passed two resolutions recently aimed at squeezing the North Korean economy by cutting off oil, labor and exports to the nation.

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“We have strangled their economic situation at this point,” U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley told reporters on Friday. “That’s going to take a little bit of time, but it has already started to take effect.”

Trump had thanked the U.N. Security Council for voting unanimously to impose the latest sanctions but indicated last week he found them insufficient.

“It’s just another very small step. Not a big deal … I don’t know if it has any impact, but certainly it was nice to get a 15-0 vote,” Trump said at the White House.

Haley and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to brief reporters later in the day on possible further sanctions.

Trump will meet with the leaders of South Korea and Japan on Thursday to discuss how to further pressure North Korea and its leader, Kim Jong Un, to abandon their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

In his maiden address to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump took a hard line on Kim’s nuclear ambitions, threatening to “totally destroy” the nation if it continued its provocations.