International Trade Law News

Published by Jacobson Burton Kelley PLLC

Today President Bush visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. In a speech following his tour of the museum, President Bush announced that the U.S. will soon impose the following new sanctions on Sudan if the current diplomatic efforts of the Secretary General of the United Nations are unsuccessful:

First, the Department of the Treasury will tighten U.S. economic sanctions on Sudan. This new effort will allow the United States to enforce more aggressively existing sanctions against Sudan's government, by blocking any of its dollar transactions within the U.S. financial system. As part of this effort, the Treasury Department will add 29 companies owned or controlled by the government of Sudan to its list of Specially Designated Nationals. This designation will bar these companies from the U.S. financial system -- and make it a crime for U.S. -- American companies and individuals to willfully do business with them.

Second, we will also target sanctions against individuals responsible for the violence. These sanctions will isolate designated individuals by cutting them off from the U.S. financial system, preventing them from doing business with any American citizen or company, and calling the world's attention to their crimes.

Third, I will direct the Secretary of State to prepare a new United Nations Security Council resolution. This resolution will apply new sanctions against the government of Sudan -- and against individuals found to be violating human rights or obstructing the peace process. It will impose an expanded embargo on arms sales to the government of Sudan. It will prohibit Sudan's government from conducting any offensive military flights over Darfur. It will strengthen our ability to monitor and report any violations. And in the next days, we will begin consulting with other Security Council members on the terms of such a resolution.

Labels: Sanctions; Sudan