SEOUL (Dispatches) -- North Korea responded Wednesday to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to relist the county as a state sponsor of terrorism, calling it a "grave provocation and aggressive violation," North Korean state media reported.
Trump put North Korea back on a list of state sponsors of terrorism on Monday, a designation that allows the United States to impose more sanctions and risks inflaming tension over North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs.
In an interview with state media outlet KCNA, a spokesman for the North Korean foreign ministry called the decision "disgraceful behavior" by Trump and denied that North Korea engaged in any terrorism.
The Trump administration imposed new sanctions on a slew of North Korean shipping firms and Chinese trading companies Tuesday in its latest push to isolate the nation and deprive it of revenue.
The U.S. Treasury Department also designated a North Korean corporation involved in exporting workers overseas. The action came a day after the United States returned North Korea to its list of state sponsors of terrorism.
"These designations include companies that have engaged in trade with North Korea cumulatively worth hundreds of millions of dollars,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
"We are also sanctioning the shipping and transportation companies, and their vessels, that facilitate North Korea’s trade and its deceptive maneuvers.”
Among the companies targeted were four Chinese-based companies and one Chinese individual said to have deep commercial ties with North Korea. The sanctions were imposed under a September executive order that opened the way for the U.S. to punish foreign companies dealing with the North. It bars those sanctioned from holding U.S. assets or doing business with Americans.
The targeting of Chinese companies is a potential sore point with Beijing, whose help President Donald Trump is counting on to put an economic squeeze on Pyongyang. China recently sent its highest-level envoy to North Korea in two years to discuss the tense state of affairs on the Korean Peninsula. As part of its effort to stymie North Korean transportation networks, the Treasury sanctioned North Korea’s Maritime Administration and its Transport Ministry, six North Korean shipping and trading companies and 20 of their vessels, which are all North Korean-flagged.
Also sanctioned was the Korea South-South Cooperation Corporation said to have exported North Korean workers to China, Russia, Cambodia and Poland to generate revenue for the government.