[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> well, good morning, everybody. welcome, all, real people and virtual people and whoever else may be listening in. if you're following the conversation on twitter, please

use #shapingsanctions. as last night's announcement on dprk suggests, sanctions are both a hot foreign policy tool, much in the news, central to top grade issues like russia, iran, dprk. sanctions are much-used, much-talked about and often misunderstood and given the importance of sanctions, both symbolic and substantive, the atlantic council has established a new sanctions program which aims to bring together key stakeholders were the administration, congress, policy, communities, businesses to improve the sanctions tool, develop best practices, address misunderstandings and cliches and avoid pitfalls. i'd like to thank the sponsors,

hog hogan lowell, price waterhouse cooper, david metsner and many thanks to you and institute of economic law which has been a partner for this event. the atlantic council sanctions team includes some of the best in the business, professionals with hands-on experience in designing sanctions programs, veterans of treasury, state, and experts, brian o'toole, keller, michael greenwald and others are part of the team here which aims to provide the best analysis and recommendations on sanctions available. i've been working with bart and the atlantic council so we're pleased to launch today's

conference and program. and we have two panels, with unperspectives from current and former practitioners including some on our team, but also, andrea of opac and now a friend in policy. there are others on our team in this panel. i think michael greenwald and then the other panel will include business people, roberts, richard, frederick shaheen, robert walsh. finally undersecretary treasury, the administration's senior person, on sanctions will deliver what i suspect will be a serious statement of this administration's approach to sanctions. so, i look forward to an in depth, lively and who knows, maybe more than lively discussion. at this point let's get started and i'd like the first panel to come to the stage.

>> good morning, everyone, it's great to be here with you today. my name is andrew keller, i'm a partner at the international trade group at hogan and previously secretary for sanctions at the state department. it's a true privilege to be-- to have the opportunity to moderate this panel with five exceptional individuals who i'm proud to call former colleagues and friends. and i have to say, i can't think of a better time for this panel, which is entitled best

practices, past errors, and the future of of sanctions. given the incredible change that we've seen over the last year, including, as a result of the change in administrations and clearly as a result of congressional actions, i've given these panelists the very small task of walking through how these changes will impact the use of sanctions as a foreign policy and national security tool and what those changes will mean for the private sector and for our allies going forward. of course they have to do all this within an hour, easy task. so, i'd like to introduce each of our panelists and then i've asked them to give a brief opening statement. i'm going to start with our

government colleagues who we're very pleased to have here today. sitting immediately to my left, we have andrea gacki. and andrea's currently the deputy prrt at ofac. and we can sum it up. she's held nearly every position. she's serving contemporaneously as the acting deputy director of the agency and director for compliance enforcement from 2014 to march 2017. she was also a stant director for licensing from 2010 to 2014, and she prior to that served as a senior sanctions advisor for policy and implementation. before ofac, she was a trial

attorney in the civil division at the department of justice, including as a senior member of the justice department's terrorism designation team. andre andrea, thanks for joining us. david testler. david currently policy planning at the state department. you can tell how important and valued david's work is because there's been a decades' long struggle for state and treasury for where he's going to work. he started his career in the heady times. late '90s as a foreign service officer and he was stationed in bucarest, baghdad, and in washington d.c. and subsequently to that, david spent several years at the treasury department first as a

senior advisor to the director and following that, as the senior advisor to the undersecretary for terrorism finances and financial intelligence. brian o'toole. brian, you're here as well. brian is currently a non-resident here at the atlantic council. immediately prior to that he was serving as the senior director-- senior advisor to the director of ofac. brian is a recognized expert on economic sanctions and is focusing his work on the intersection of economics, national security, and economic and financial sanctions. i'll just note that prior to his time at treasury, he also served as an analyst in treasuries, prior to his time in ofac he served as an anl

international affairs and central intelligence agency. ambassador dan fried, really no introduction, but i will simply say that prior to joining the atlantic council in his current capacity, he served in the foreign service for 40 years. he played a key role in designing and implementing american policy in europe after the fall of the soviet union, he served as assistant-- excuse me, an assistant to the president and nsc senior director for presidents clinton and bush, he was the ambassador to poland and he also was the assistant secretary for european affairs from 2005 to 2009 at the state department. and last but not least, we have elizabeth rosenburg. liz is a senior fellow at the

center for a new american security. she is the director of the energy economics and security program there, and she publ publishes and expert on economic and state craft. and liz also has experience at senior levels of the treasury department with where she served for advisor for assistant secretary on financial terrorists and senior crimes and advisor to the undersecretary for financial intelligence. prior to joining the government, liz was a correspondent, an energy policy correspondent here in washington. so, i will stop talking now and i'll ask andrea to kick things off and deliver a brief opening statement, and andrea, you can

speak from the podium or stay in your chair. >> thank you. >> thank you so much, andrew, but thank you to everyone. it's really a pleasure to help kick off today's exciting program and to be on the stage with so many friends and current or former colleagues, but first and foremost, but also to see so many great familiar faces in the audience. so, i think we all know, because we all practice in this area, that tankses can be extremely powerful tools, especially when you strategically and with precision, they freeze assets of illicit actors and strip their ability to interface with the international financial system. in addition to protecting the u.s. financial system from abuse, sanctions are intended to increase pressure on regimes and actors with the goals of

changing their behavior. sanctions can be structured and scoped in ways to achieve those objectives and mod late that pressure. for example, we can limit access to certain types of financing, or prohibit certain transactions without a full freezing of all transactions and assets. when deployed in support of this clearly-defined objective, and utilized in conjunction with the country's other national security tools and authorities, including diplomacy, sanctions can be key to achieving our foreign policy goal. additionally our domestic sanctions could be more effective when paired with multi-lateral action, whether that's through the european union or the united nations, to help increase pressure and change behavior. now, we always work to carefully evaluate how our sanctions can be implemented by private sector. and we seek as much as possible

to provide clear guidance and respond to your questions, through frequently asked questions, answers to frequently asked questions and guidance and to open up ways to approach the agency for guidance. in addition, we, in forum such as this, we stand ready to listen to your concerns, to your issues, as we continue to adapt and structure sanctions to make them the most effective, understandable and implementable tool for the national security aims that they're designed to accomplish. now, while sanctions aren't the solution to every foreign policy issue, as dan alluded to in the opening remarks, they can have a significant impact. specifically, we have focused so much of our recent efforts as dedicated to the threat from the north korean regime. we've restricted their ability

to move money through the financial system and disrupted revenue generating exports and other prohibited trade. we've aggressively ramped up our actions and targeting evasion schemes and partners and allies, we've seen the north korean regime more isolated and now indicate they're ready to come to the table. we will continue to target other of these illicit and activities and actors that threaten our national security. not only with respect to north korea, but also threats like iran, russia, and venezuela. looking to the future, it's, i think we can all agree here in this room that you'll continue to see sanctions as a promissory foreign tool of foreign policy and continue to be targeted-- excuse me, continue to be deployed in ever more targeted, specific and impactful ways. i'd like to turn it over to my colleague, david tessler and

also say that i look forward to the discussion today. thank you. >> i'm going to speak from the chair because i was told that that's the-- that's what i should do. [laughter] >> i wanted to just use these five minutes to layout a few principles for the effective use of sanctions and they key off much of what andrea just said, which is not surprising because we've worked together for a long time. so think alike. but the first principle, and this seems obvious, both dan said it and andrea mentioned it several times was that sanctions are a tool of foreign policy and the reason why this is an important principle, although it may seem obvious, is with the proliferation of the use of sanctions, i think it's important to remember that, it is designed to advance specific foreign policy goals and defend our national security. so, when looking at a foreign

policy set of issues, it's important to think holistically what are the end goals, the strategic policy, a to get us to the end states and how to sanction as a tool in the policy toolbox that fit into that. that's principle number one. principle two, if you're going to use sanctions, understand the targets and how the targets think and design sanctions in a targeted and creative way to effect the behavior change you want. two examples, andrea mentioned one of them, is north korea. over the past year, this administration has focused quite a bit of energy and time into energy sanctions, looking at coal, looking at oil, refined petroleum, ship to ship transfers because of an analysis and an assessment of how energy sanctions would actually impact the target, and

the calculus here the sergeant is kim jong-un and his calculus. and with energy sanctions is venezuela, and the creative use of sanctions to target, also in an effort to impact behavior change of maduro. so, to look at sanctions and oohs them creatively and in a targeted way, that's principle number two. and principle number three, and this is where i spend a lot of my time, and that is building coalitions of allies and partners to help leverage the united states' power in sanctions and to be a force multiplier. and you've seen over the past year, this administration highlight the importance of coalitions of partners and allies across the board. so, whether it's in the realm and our close coordination with europe, vis-a-vis russia maligned activity, that's not only ukraine and crimea, but

the broad spectrum of russia malign activity and also working with gulf allies and european partners to combat iran destabilizing activities in the region or working with asian partners like japan and south korea, to -- in the, you know, to target north korea and to help augment our maximum pressure campaign. so, you see that with this administration, i think, across the board. and that is where, you know, i spend a lot of my time but that is, i would say the third principle in looking at how to effectively implement sanctions progra programs. >> great. well, that's-- all the other panelists said it's great to be here and see the folks in audience and many of whom are former colleagues and friends and be up here with a bunch of my friends as well. thank you all for being here. i'm going to focus some of my remarks from the atlantic

council perspective, more on mechanics of sanctions and i'm going to let dan talk about some of the policy and when i say let dan talk about policy, i mean he's much more qualified to do it than i am, so it just makes sense. from the mechanical standpoint, i think that one of the hallmarks of this administration, you can really see kind of the work of the professionals behind the actions that have happened. and i think this is especially true when you have to cut through some of the noise in the media. i think this administration, you know, for better or worse, has a much louder media presence and a much more chaotic media previous-- presence than the previous one. if you look at actions coming forward. it's the same stuff i was doing when i was in government. in the obama administration and before, there's a real technical aspect, and i'll just highlight quickly the north korea action from about two weeks ago, where you know, it was billed as the billiggest

action on north korea if you go from the numbers, but from an a sweeping standpoint probably not exactly accurate, but that doesn't really matter. what matters it was a significant action and one of the things it showed, it's the kind of action that drives a knife deeper into somebody's side. you had an action going after kind of the shipping networks that the north uses, as david said, a big focus on the shipping because that's what is the energy procurement and energy procurement drives their nuclear program and it's highly technical and competent action. and so, i think the administration is to be applauded for that and one of the things that, you know, i very much noticed more from the treasury side that's where i'm more familiar, but i think it's from state as well. is the senior officials are really letting find of the professionals, the people who have been doing this like david and andrea, for years and years and years, they've given them the running room to do the job and do the job right. i think that's really encouraging when you think about how these tools are

applied to these foreign policies and national security crises. all of that said, i think there are some cracks that have shown a little bit in the implementtation and to be frank, i don't chalk that up to a lack of expertise or a willingness on the part of the politicals to let the professionals do their job. i think they're resource related. sanctions that everybody turns to. every time there's a crisis congress says what are we going to impose sanctions on. we've turned to this tool probably more often than we should, to be frank. and there hasn't been the corresponding investment in these tools. one example that i'll give and you know, again, i think this is a resource-related issue for any of you who have been in government. you're governing through a chaotic process and certain things may slip through the cracks, especially if you don't have the amount of people you need on the target. the venezuela eo, some smart sanctions in general on venezuela, there was a kind of provision in there that

targeted venezuela government bonds. right, the issue with the implementtation though is it targeted all venezuelan bonds and at the same time it released the executive order, it was exempting effectively everything, but one venezuelan government bond, so you have this kind of x target and then, x minus 1 is everything that you're letting go. so, i think it's caused that -- that caused a lot of reaction especially in the financial industry where people were scrambling to figure out, oh, my gosh, do i hold bonds and do i meet the numbers on these lists? when that didn't really need to happen and those resources, both in the government that were answering the questions from financial industry and the financial industry itself could have been better used to implement the sanctions. i think it's critical that the administration and congress get together and figure out a way to fund this appropriately. i'm not talking about, you know, a couple of million dollars here and there, what they need is, you know, it's about a 50% budget increase is what i've said in various--

i think there's the administration taking a solid first step in putting an increase in the budget proposal, in the president's budget and i think that congress is taking this seriously as well. it's similar to kind of an investment congress made in finsat a number of years ago for the infrastructure and the backbone that they rest enforcement on and i think a similar effort is needed to make this work as well as we need it to work to confront these crises that we're facing. finally, kind of looking forward, i think there are-- there are a couple of things i'd like to touch on. the first is, you know, he think we can expect to see that same level of professionalism in the action that this administration is going to take. especially where there's kind of a consistent policy message and a real kind of focus with the united states and her

allies. i do think there is at least in certain programs, i'm going to say russia because i think it needs to be said, a cap on how far that professionalism will extend because i do think this administration has certain issues with russia, so, i don't think we need to get into them too much, but i think what it means is that at some point, that professional running room is probably going to run into a cap and i think we need to bear that in mind as we think how these challenges play out. finally, i think we -- a lot of us in this room and a lot of us certainly at the atlantic council tend to true more policy and national security especially at the highest level, in an analytic rubric on what we focused in school and practiced for a long time, international relations is about relations, longstanding relationships and i think that's from an analytic, but when you're looking at this

administration, and especially the top political issue is going to end up, we need to think about these things in a statistic manner and i think that's the hallmark of the president and certainly the kind of dedecisi-- key decision makers in this government. i've given up trying to predict some of these things because i've had trouble with that myself, but we need to start thinking as we predict, what a transactional model looks like, and what that means. inge it's harder because you're not always going to know the inputs in those transactional decisions, but i think it's the correct way that we need to evaluate what these very high level things are going to come down to, including the north korea negotiations that hopefully will be starting soon. >> by request of ambassador fried, you are up next. >> i'll go next, giving the last word to ambassador fried. >> thanks very much. a pleasure to be here with you all. and thank you all for coming to

this important conversation. so, i thought i'd offer not-- so not to be redundant with some of the excellent comments we've heard so far, i thought i'd offer a few comments on congress and its role in sanctions and maybe this is the political or you know, sand box fight part of the conversation. but i know that many people on foreign policy and compliance role tend to focus on the administration when it comes to sanctions and i suspect that's a real focus for many of you who are here today. obviously, they are the implementer and enforcer and to the extent there's a multi-lateral component to the sanction, it's up to the administration, of course, and its diplomatic initiatives to engage with counterparts and build a coalition and joint actions that can come forward and that have the greatest effect and leverage, when they are so joined internationally. also, of course, the administration has been really

creative and innovative in the way that it has implemented sanctions. i'm thinking, just, for example, the. is si list, the creation of that. and some new ways to go after violators of human rights, for example, and thinking of some of the initiatives to try and more closely pair export control measures with law enforcement actions, with sanctions, to amplify the policy effect. so, that's attracted a lot of attention and of course, the op-temp for administrative sanctions, has caught a lot of news coverage, but nevertheless, congress, back to congress, is really significant in this debate. some of you, i know, are keen on that point, and i want to make three quick points about the role of congress on sanctions. specifically, that they are a very significant originator and

innovator and disrupter when it comes to sanctions. i'll tell you a little of what i mean by that. besides originator, for those of you concerned about the specific authorities and how they organize the way in which these sanctions are implemented, of course, you know that congress is the originator. they created the backbone, the architecture on which all of these initiatives that have been mentioned so far rest and that means that they also have the authority and ability to change it and take it away. i don't think we focused on that so often and it's certainly politically for them to do that all of a sudden without quite a lot of coalition building and advance work. but they've had a couple of recent cases which have reminded people of that ultimate congressional authority. and not to forget their role as an originator on budget issues,

brian was mentioning how significant they are in giving resources to the implementtation and execution and enforcement of sanctions which is a real enabler or disabler of all of this activity at that we're talking about. as far as the role of congress as an innovator, i would argue they are at least as important as the administration in innovating new approaches to sanctions and creating some of the intellectual capital which may not ultimately take the form of the measures that are implemented or the enforcement, but in expanding the conversations, sometimes that's scary for covered entities who are looking at how to implement these measures. and this innovation is both substantive and it's strategic. so, substantive. think about what they did in putting together some of the iran measures from 2012, such as the energy frame work for

restrictions on iran's export of petroleum, including compelling the revenues of allow allowed petroleum to be held in accounts of the purchasing country. it's really interesting and elaborative and creative work they've done and you know the good cop-bad cop, in the last 20 years and signaling work that they do, and i think it's appropriate to consider some of the sanctions bills introduced in congress as initially, at least, more bark and more fury than they ever planned to originally wind up at, which is to say they are expressions that may be more emotional, that may be effective as a signaling tool, more so, much

more so than the effort to eventually legislate and create the authorities that will then guide what the administration does. and we've seen that be incredibly effective, if you were watching the precursor to what became catsa, this is december of 2016, right, i have that right. it was much more aggressive, if you will, than where we wound up in, and that did deter action. and in the russia space, i think we should consider significantly messaging and its character. last on the issue of congress being a disrupter, this is a way to characterize what they've done to push the envelope on policy and even pushing aside administration priorities and this isn't specific to the current administration or to party, we saw this in the last administration, very sharply.

think about congress's major recent push to take a stronger role in foreign policy, to have greater oversight of the administration, trying to con strain president obama's actions with regard to the iran deal or con strain under catsa, this administration's action with implementation of russia sanctions and i will conclude by saying, we're still in that moment looking forward to the may waiver deadlines with the jcpoa iran nuclear deal. the president is looking to congress. as well as european partners to take action on issues concerning about iran nuclear deal. so, congress has the opportunity to be a disrupter and to change the policy course the president has set out, which is to say he will not renew sanctions, he will cancel the iran deal essentially

unless and until he is satisfied by congress with policy actions in this domain. i'll stop there. >> of course, waiver deadlines themselves are a way of maintaining control. >> yes, they created the waiver deadlines, they are the only body that can change them. right. >> thank you, liz. last, but definitely not least, ambassador fried. >> four points, first, andy and gacki, you have examples of the deep professional competence that this administration can draw on in designing and implementing sanctions policy. they know what they're doing and at treasury, especially, andrea represents a deeply competent, skilled bureaucracy, and having had nothing to do with the building of that bureaucracy, this is not self-serving. it is of tremendous comfort to

know that there are people who can actually do their job and do what they say they're going to do. this is a tool which cannot be taken for granted and needs to be cherished. second point related, the competent people in the administration need the resources to work with. brian mentioned funding, that's true. i think treasury is well-organized to fulfill its sanctions role, it needs more people and more money. the state department, well, okay. full disclosure, the office at the state department, the office of the sanctions coordinator at state, my old job, was abolished. david tessler is saying the sanctions coordinator. he's a good guy, okay. i know he's sitting here. but i tell you he's a good guy. [laughter] >> there's nothing wrong with

him. [laughter] >> but he's only one guy, okay? he's one guy. i had a staff. he's got himself and he's got a day job. he's deputy director of policy planning. if this administration is going to use sanctions, it should remember that sanctions work best when the legal, analytic and policy skills of ofac and other treasury sanctions offices are combined with the diplomatic skills in the department of state. all right, that's a big deal. and that needs to be fixed. a third point, david mentioned this, andeda mentioned this, effective sanctions policy is not a unilateral action. it requires allies. now, they said it. but the administration is going to have to mean it. when we go to the europeans or the japanese about, for example, russia sanctions,

we're asking governments to tell their businesses to take major hits. and we have to decide how much political capital to invest in sanctions policy and how much political capital to spend on other things, like tariffs. we have to-- this is not one where the tracks are independent. the tracks have to be integrated and if we're going to be successful in the implementtation of sanctions, we need to do it in tandem with our allies or it's not going to work and then it becomes exercises in feel-good, which has its uses, especially inside washington but really, i don't care. feel-good is not interesting. results are interesting, and you need allies. a fourth point, sanctions are

not a policy. they are a tool to advance a policy, which leads to suspicion that you better know what your policy is, and it better be clear up and down the line, including to your allies. now, of the three big sanctions programs in this administration, russia, iran, dprk, there are questions about the policy. on iran, are we or are we not going to use sanctions within the frame work of the jcpoa? and if not, what is the alternative? and i understand sanctions cannot make iran into a much better country. they can and have gotten iran to sign the jcpoa and adhere to

it. that's one question. a next question on north korea, sanctions are designed, as was said earlier, to drive north korea to the negotiating table. now, maybe that has been achieved. in which case, all power to the administration. there's nothing wrong with playing a high stakes tough game. sometimes you can't do it the way the foreign service bureaucracy would prefer you to do it, which is methodically and step by step. so i'm not knocking the high stakes. but, but the north koreans have been down this road before. they've been doing bait and switch for 20 years. ask anybody who worked in any of the administrations about what it's like when the ruling dynasty gives its word. to make this work, we will need a durable frame work so

everybody knows what our strategic-- what our strategic choices are and what we're looking for. now, i hope we're there. i'm not going to trash the announcement last night, it might lead to something. but we've been back and forth on whether or not we would talk to the north koreans at all. and sanctions cannot be turned on and off instantly. it requires a lot of pushing. so, it's a question mark. on russia, i think the gap between professional competence and the implementtation of sanctions and questions about the policy is clear. the russia sanctions have been implemented by the trump administration over the past year in a competent, credible fashion. if you follow the details of treasuries, sanctions, maintenance, tinkering of the

russia sanctions they've been good and sometimes, actually pretty clever. the administration prepared section 241 of the so-called kremlin report, by all accounts, with a high degree of skilled professionalism and deep analytic judgment. there's a classified report, i haven't seen it, but people who have seen it, including the current political opponents of the administration agreed it's better than a solid job, it's an exemplary job and yet, in the rollout, the administration first tried to hide the good work it had done, then issued a noncredible public list at that retreated from that and said it was going to draw on the classified list for additional sanctions and there have been various republicans exactly what it's done. and this could be a good thing. this could end well, but

sanctions policy has to be integrated into the main policy or else you have heat generated by friction that does no good. this is to say, all of these major sanctions issues, russia, iran, dprk, could be effective. the elements for effective policy is there. but the policy frame work needs to be clear, it needs to be understood, there's nothing wrong with tactical unpredictability that could be used for a lever, but operational unreliability is seldom useful and i hope the administration finds a way to use the asset of tactical unpredictability without falling into the operational

unreliability. and finally transparency with congress and the business community is critical. the way you stay-- this is laura's point, but i'm making kind of a crude summary because that's what i do. for congress, the way to keep them from going off into crazy land, is to stay ahead of them. you know, be thinking of all of their objections and be able to answer it and you will be pleased by the results. but you can't do that unless you have the resources and the policy and the strategy and you've got the allies lined up. then congress can be a help and not a disrupter. right? i hope some of the questions i've laid out will be answered by one of the people representing the deep competence available to this administration. it's not just the career

people, it is political appointees, also, who are skilled, smart, strategic thinkers and able. so, i hope to get some of these questions answered today and to have more questions besides. thanks. >> thanks to all of you for extremely thoughtful and interesting remarks that gave a lot of fodder for our conversation. i hate to be accused of shamelessly chasing the headlines, but i'm going to shamelessly chase the headlines and i think dan mentioned, you know, president trump may be meeting with kim jong-un in the next few months. everybody on this stage, as you heard, seems to agree that sanctions are a tool to incentivize behavior change and a tool to achieve-- help achieve foreign policy and national security goals.

so, i'm wondering, if we can think of the north koreans willingness to talk as at least the beginning of a sanction success story and i think this administration has clearly taken a very strong and aggressive position towards sanctions, against north korea, i think we also saw in the last administration, a shift from nonproliferation sanctions to broader-based sanctions that really target most, if not all of north korea's revenue sources. so, if-- and dan, you've already alluded to this. that maybe i'll start or ask our other colleagues to start off with, a, whether this can be thought of as the beginning of the success story, and, b, how and whether sanctions can

truly economic sanctions can truly be effective with the regime that for so long has seemed to not have any interest with being part of the national economy or any legitimate international commercial activity and similarly hasn't shown any interest in being responsive to its citizens and their needs. so, if i have any volunteers to kick that off. >> i would say that it's too early to tell if it's been a success. i think what it does show is that the shift from strategic patience to a new policy of maximum pressure is having an effect. i think that's what you can, you know, you can tell from, you know, until now. and i think it's important, also, to under line that, that the maximum pressure campaign is going to continue until the north koreans actually match

these words with these, right? so, we're not going to let up at all. the maximum pressure campaign is going to continue, but i think that the announcement yesterday is a sign that it is-- it is starting to work and it's having an effect. and that is through a lot of hard work, coalition building, working with the chinese. you know, you mentioned, you questioned whether or not the regime that clearly doesn't care about its people could be impacted by sanctions. they care about their survival, right? and when you really target the economic levers that can threaten its survival, like energy, for example, and you get -- you know, you work to really, first, adopt very, very strong u.n. security council resolutions and then work with allies and partners and china and recognizing china is critical here, to actually robustly implement those strong sanctions, you know, strong resolutions, then you start to see, perhaps, that we're

pushing on the levers that matter to the regime. >> and i can really only agree with everything david just said, at opac we have shifted four resources and you'll hear this from the secretary during her keynote. but we have many urgent national security priorities that we're facing, but norths korea is the first among them. we have adapted and constantly looking at the state department for the right notes of pressure and also the right ways affect the regime calculus and that is continue. i think last night's announcement is welcome, but too early to say in the maximum pressure campaign is not going to let up yet. >> that the administration deserves credit for ramping up the pressure on north korea. i think that the obama policies

strategic patience went on for seven and a half years without serious results and in the last six months, about, of the obama administration, they decided, you know, hey, this is not working and oh, my god, this north korean timeline is developing strategic nuclear capabilities a lot shorter than we thought it was, which is when some of us got the running room to do more. but, the credit for implementing that, for making it happen at the u.n. and bilaterally goes to this administration. they ran with it, the strategic assumption of a shift to maximum pressure, i think is the correct one. i think the question will come now what we do, when that moment arrives that the north korean regime is not negotiating in good faith, as i think it will. so what do we do then, but that is a better problem to have than where we were. so, i'll credit the administration for this one.

and one of the cliches of north korea was that sanctions are useless because the regime is so determined to have strategic nuclear weapons and so ruthless and vicious that no amount of pressure will possibly work. so, give it up. i mean, that was-- i can't tell you how many north korea experts kept telling me, sanctions won't work, give it up. yeah, kim jong-un will never give up nuclear-- his nuclear capacity willingly. the question is, as lenin used to say, how do you sharpen the contradictions or make it tougher for him? and that's the strategic basis for maximum pressure, but again, we now have issues before us. a bilateral meeting at the level of presidents, that's a gift to kim.

and he's going to, you know, there will come various moments of truth you don't need me to tell you, you all know it, but, look, morning after, this is actually pretty good since it's the kind of signal we were hoping for. some sign of movement. >> i'll just make a brief point on t on top of what everybody has said. i think the campaign has been very success. we'll see if it's a successful diplomatic engagement as david mentioned in the remarks that was bolstered by sanctions. one thing, too, i'd like to come back to what dan said in opening remarks. everything is interrelated, remember, and this is not a novel point, other people made it, which is what happens on may 12th with iran, jcp 0. a renewal is going to be instructive for the north

koreans when they sit down to try to negotiate with us, and i think this administration needs to remember that those policies are intertwined, regardless of what may have been said on the campaign trail and whether the jcpoa is really the worst deal ever and i think, you know, the north koreans will be watching, the chinese will be watching, the russians will be watching and i think it's going to be very important for the success of any sort of negotiations with the north koreans to the exit extent that the kim administration-- it's not an administration, it's a dynasty, at that the extent that the kim regime is serious about sitting down and that there's a serious partner on our side and we'll stick to any commitment that we make and i think that's going to be something that everybody should pay attention to, not only for iran and, you know, issues in that region, but as they apply to northeast asia as well. >> you have already made all of my good points in ten seconds i will just add, i agree with brian, context in history

matters. context to the jcpoa will be incredibly significant for north korea, as well as for anyone concerned with arms control or multi-lateral cooperation on that front and remember to the delta asia, the original real heavy hammer that woke up north korean attention and actually became the model on which of all the successful iran pressure was modeled, subsequently, we know that the bureaucracy supporting sanctions and this cultivation of economic leverage and this point. what matters and the answer to this story is how the capacity and how carefully the administration is able to deliver on the diplomatic and negotiating side. i fear that there are inadequate ranks, so, david,

don't get a cold, to do with this economic pressure that has been cultivated what must be done in order to really advance the diplomatic work toward the negotiation. >> why don't we shift gears and talk a little bit about russia in particular cafta, and i think that it's fair to say that between 2014 and 2016, one of the-- and perhaps the top priority of the government in moving forward on the russia sanctions front was to move forward with the europeans and to maintain transatlantic unity. that, to a certain extent, has been thrown off balance, i think in large part by cafta, which obviously was not an administration effort bu a congressional effort and also

to a certain extent by the current political dynamic and i'm wondering, and maybe i'll ask david and andrea to sort of start off, sort of if you could talk about what efforts you've made to engage the europeans as far as, you know, while that was under consideration and the implementation phase, especially given, i think, the symbolic importance of showing unity with the europeans over russian sanctions and similarly, the importance with regard to the private sector, i think the original sanctions were really rolled out in a way and implemented in a way that they were never going to be analogous between the united states and the european union, but they were sufficiently harmonious to at least make things somewhat easier on the private sector. so, perhaps, if either of you

could comment on that. >> sure, i'll just kick it off. i think, andrew, there was a fear last summer that catsa might impact our close coordination on transatlantic unity and i think that we, tew hard work and a lot of energy and time have proven that fear among. and i think, you know, andrea and i are leaving for europe next week. this will be my fifth time there to talk about russia sanctions since september, which is a lot of time in europe europeans have come here quite a bit and i think they, i mean, if you ask them, i think that our, you know, when we first went in september or even in august, started talking about the fact that we want to maintain and not only maintain, but strengthen the close coordination, there was a little bit of skepticism on their side, but the proof is in the pudding, right? so we worked very closely with them through the end of october

when we issued our joint guidance and treasury and state. we took into account a lot of views from are the europeans and also the private sector which maybe andrea can maybe talk about, but there's also very close coordination there, but i think through the actual work we've shown that we can actually use catsa to strengthen our cooperation. it's important, also, to remember that it not only articulates the very serious threats that the russians pose vis-a-vis ukraine and crimea, but lays out the broad spectrum of russian threats, including, you know, undermining democratic processes, cyber, human rights, et cetera, so it's a broad articulation and a strong one and we have, i think, shown, you know, that we're implementing it robustly and in close-- working closely with the europeans, and i think the europeans are happy with where we are today. >> and i would just like to

echo everything that david said. you know, they have been working with the state department, you know, has helped engage with the european governments, but also with the private sector not only here in the united states, but worldwide. after the passage of catsa, many questions came in to us, excuse me, as to how we might interpret certain terms so that we had not only an open-door policy so we could broadly consider how to answer them and propose answers. i know that folks may have individually heard me say this time and again, but we welcome, we welcome proposed questions and proposed answers, we may not agree with the answer and decide what the answer is at the end of the day, but that was something that we aggressively, excuse me, looked at in implementtation. >> on the issue of catsa management. i think that the administration

has done a good job working with europe to limit the more questionable provisions and the drafters know that it's a mixed bag. some good, some not so good. and i think that i give the administration credit, but to stay ahead of the congressional politics and avoid being slammed, it's important for the administration to show what it is going to do and i hoped that what david tessler said is a hint that when treasury comes out with its next tranche of sanctions, and i'm not giving away anything, that they've said publicly, that i hope it addresses this. i think-- i think you nailed it, i agree, that there is considerable potential for cooperation with europe to use the sanctions tool in response to a different kind of russian in ukraine,

which is their attacks on our western political systems. ... there are a variety of tools, and i think that the u.s. and europe was able to make it clear to the russians that there will be consequences for further interference. the stars may be aligned because in washington terms, it may be imperative to be

seen as doing this, and it is the right policy. so, go get them. >> i'm going to go to liz and please get your questions ready. i know you have been waiting. we will turn to the audience for q&a. >> i will be brief. this is the space to watch for this has been helpful in talking about the history of development and implementation so far, but looking forward, the animating issue in the u.s. public discourse that really drives attention on russia related form policy is no longer ukraine. it isn't what russia is doing in syria, it's not any of that. what it is is specific concern about interference in u.s. elections and militia cyber activity. there's very little potential that they will join the united states in any sanctions activity, notwithstanding that there is potential to do so. the european approach has been much more operational, looking

at what they did in the macron case, this is an area of debate and discussion. we will see what happens but this is the space to watch. >> there are about 30 other questions, but. [inaudible] i should remind all of our questioners, if you could please introduce yourselves and mention your affiliation. >> you for coming. dan, you mention that the sanctions will not work without allies or their cooperation which is true. regarding north korea, 90% of their trade is with china and you know that. for a fact, i do know there is

pipeline going into north korea from china. i'm talking about oil. my question is what can we do about china? what should we do? what can we do with that? without that, the sanction may not be working, not as good as we designed too. that's just my natural question. thank you for coming. >> i will give the trump administration credit for getting china to do far more than they wanted to two years ago. the chinese been on imports of north korean coal is not

complete but it's pretty good. it's hitting our money. , textile, fishery experts, we hit those hard in the chinese have moved a lot. they move partly because i think they believe the trump administration is serious in escalating even further and going up to chinese companies and banks. that potential is still there. it is targeting the chinese much more aggressively. i wouldn't race to it because once you start doing that, you get, you start approaching red zones of retaliation and unintended consequences. you may have to. look, i'm not ruling it out. i tend to be on the push the envelope side, but right now we have sanctions that may have brought us to this moment where there is direct dialogue. we will see what happens. it will either work out and then we may be back to these issues. and get on the table and the

administration has handled pretty well, hinting they were willing to do more but not rushing to slam the chinese. i think they've done okay. >> i agree. you've got to remember something about china. with respect to north korea, china is furious by all accounts with what the regime has done in trying to develop test nuclear weapons and it really pissed off beijing. from an implementation standpoint of the sanctions, there are sanctions that are unprecedented and i think the trump administration deserves a lot of credit for pushing those. when you come to implementation of those sanctions, there's a trick. you've got to look at china, too many people look at china purely as an adversary and to me folks don't realize while there may be some pockets within china of areas where

they might be trying to undercut the sanctions a little bit, china also had implementation issues of its own. they also have a command economy. we make the mistake of projecting our own kind of confidence in having folks enforce against financial situations and exporters and whoever else might be involved. the confidence of our private sector in doing this, assuming china could do this is a false assumption. if you're going to go after the chinese, i think you really need, especially at any significant level when you start going after banks, you really need to have those smoking guns.

you really need to have a top levels of the bank complicit in a conspiracy to undermine the sanctions. i think that's the only way you can justify that. >> i think i saw another hand out there. >> i am the investor of mozambique and i wanted to thank the council on this very important discussion. wanted to set up a framework of sanctions but they will always be more effective if you have all countries buying into it and supporting them but they have to understand them. when you think about partners and allies in terms of

sanction sanctions, it will be very important to understand that when you are fighting something which is bad for the world like north korean regime and nuclear proliferation, you have more friends than enemies who want to support you in that cause. i wanted an elaboration of the framework, un and beyond. >> thank you. that's an excellent question. david. >> sure, we could not agree more. in this administration we have focused quite a bit not only on the three regimes we been talking about, iran, russia and north korea but also on an as well and other sanctions regime.

isis, kind of isis and terrorism out large part we have been focused both in new york but also building coalitions, regional coalitions to explain why we are using sanctions as a tool of form policy. what are our and states. where do we want to go. how is that in our common interest. it's not only explaining where we are coming from and where we want to go but also how this is in our common interest. north korea is a common example. we been working in the past year to reestablish strong relationships with our golf partners, not only our golf partners but also having conversations in europe to talk about our interest in combating hezbollah and support to proxies and destabilizing activity in the

assad regime. these are common interest we share with many partners around the world and its building those coalitions to find more leverage and create suppliers. >> if i could just add a little bit to what david said, obviously highlighting the importance, but oh fact is a singular agency worldwide and it's a domestic implement an agency. i know part of the treasury department worked very hard if there is multilateral will to try to get the guidance and expertise to make sure there is a way to interdict transactions or take steps that are meaningful and implementable. >> if you have time for one more question. >> i think that the point, i

think we need to be more complex about it and diplomacy and other dimensions and are not just have one cause that led up to this and also, as you suggested, the fact that they have their nuclear deterrent, the probably less dangerous and they feel like they have some leverage and also, i think we need to keep in mind that the button was that he didn't intend to use it and that's a legitimate,

there is also a study of sanctions and they failed 86 times. along with maximum pressure waiting to consider humiliation, drastic tension and an opportunity here. >> i will ask if anybody wants to comment or agree, disagree. >> a bunch of us have said it before. sanctions are one tool, i don't think any of us agree that sanctions are silver bullet or applicable or appropriate for every case. it's one tool, the powerful one but it's in a whole toolbox of tools. >> when we take, i think that counts more of a comment and i think we can work in one more question.

>> together with my baltic and east european colleagues we are on the hill every week advocating for policy priorities and implementation of russia sanctions is always at the top of that list. i'm just wondering if you have any suggestions for how we can best refine our message to appeal to staffers and members of congress to advance things more quickly. >> i have the highest regard for estonia's ability to resist russian aggression. you are on the front line like no kidding. i think that the area to

explore is what should be the content of the transatlantic response to russian political pressure. information, cyber hacking, various forms of pressure on all of us. i found it, i thought it was terrific that miller's indictment got this. let the record show we got him first for violation of the ukraine sanctions, but we knew he was involved. there is upward potential. it shouldn't just be americans.

it may be that the europeans are not going to be able to increase actions, but i wonder, ask the brits how they are feeling about the russians these days. are they interested in options or the spanish, or the french. in my experience, the way you work with europe is not to ask an abstract question but to assemble like-minded people and work with brussels and be honest about it. be clear about what you are doing and why you're doing it. see what can be done. either we can have a transatlantic common approach or second-best, you get the americans with the eu's understanding and some governments doing things. i like working with the eu, but i think that's the direction in which we can go. the russian economy is stable in a macro sense but it is in a period of stagnation. the russian leadership, putin

doesn't act like a confident guy. he acts like he is worried about the future of his attackers see and the power structure around him. if they were really confident they would be quite so nervous about their money abroad. their anxiety could be our opportunity. they went after us, we should return the favor. that's my suggestion. of course the estonian and baltic americans don't need to tell them that. >> i think it's a perfect note to and on. i have one housekeeping announcement which is that we are going to take a five-minute break and the second panel will begin. uncertainty and volatility in the trump administration sanctions policy, the private sector's response and the way forward, thank you very much to our panelists for an excellent job this morning.

[applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] eight reef break in the conference with former treasury officials on economic sanctions hosted by the economic council. when the discussion resumes in about five minutes, panels will talk about volatility and uncertainty in the trump administration sanctions policy. it is five minutes away. while this break is underway we will show you some of the conversation from earlier. >> i think we all know because we all practice in the area

that sanctions can be colorful tools especially when you strategically and with precision. cut them off from the u.s. financial system and restrict their ability to interface on the international financial system. in addition to protecting the u.s. financial system from abuse, sanctions are intended to increase pressure with the goal of changing their behavior. sanctions can be structured and scoped to get objectives and modulate that pressure. we can limit access on financing or prohibit certain crude factions. we don't have to freeze all transactions and assets. with support of this clearly defined objective and utilizing other national security tools and authorities including diplomacy, sanctions can be key to achieving our foreign policy goal.

additionally our domestic sanctions can be even more effective when paired with multilateral sanctions. whether that's through the european union or the united nation to help increase pressure and change behavior. we always work to carefully evaluate how sanctions can be implement it by the private sector. we seek, as much as possible, to provide clear guidance and respond to your questions through frequently asked questions and guidance and opening up a variety of different ways to approach the agency for guidance. in addition, we stand ready to listen to your concern, to your issues and we continue to adapt and structure sanctions to make them the most effective, understandable and effective tool but they are

designed to accomplish. sanctions on the solution to every form policy issue. as dan alluded to they can have a significant impact. specifically we have focused so much on our efforts dedicated to the threat of the north korean regime. we restricted their ability to move money through the financial system and disrupted revenue exports and other prohibited trade. we've aggressively ramped up our action and by targeting certain schemes and sending a strong clear message to partners and allies, we have seen the north korean regime grow even more isolated and now indicate they are ready to come to the table. we will continue to target other activities and actors that threaten our national security, not only with respect to north korea but also threats like iran, russia

and venezuela. looking to the future, i think we can all agree in this room that you will continue to see sanctions as a primary tool of form policy. it continues to be targeted, deployed and ever more targeted, specific and impactful ways. i would like to turn it over to my colleague and also say that i look forward to the discussion today. >> i'm going to speak from the chair because i was told that's what i should do that wanted to just use these five minutes to layout a field principles for the effective use of sanctions and they key off much of what andrea said which is not surprising because we work together for a long time. the first principle is that

sanctions are a tool of form policy. the reason why this is an important principle is that with the proliferation of the use of sanctions, i think it's important to remember it is designed to advance specific form policy goals and to defend our national security. while looking at a foreign policy set of issues, it's important to think holistically. what are the policy arcs i will get us to the in-state and how to sanctions as a tool in the form policy tool box fit into that. that's principle number one pet number two is if you are going to use sanctions really understand the target, how the targets think and design the sanctions in a targeted and creative way to affect the behavior change you want. two examples, andrea mentioned

one that's north korea. over the past years this administration has focus quite a bit of energy and time into energy sanctions, looking at coal and oil, refined petroleum, ship to ship transfers because of an analysis and assessment of how energy sanctions would impact the target and the calculus near the target and his target. another example is venezuela and the creative use of sanctions and an effort to impact behavior changes. to look at sanctions and use them creatively and in a targeted way, that is principle number two. principle number three, this is where i spend a lot of my time, building coalitions of

allies and partners to help leverage the united states is power in sanctions and to be a force multiplier. you've seen, over the past years this administration highlights the importance of coalition and partners and allies across the board. whether it's in the realm and our close coordination with europe, these are the russian activity and that's not only ukrainian crimea but the broad-spectrum of russian activity or working with golf allies and our european partners to to combat iran destabilizing activities in the region or working with asian partners like japan and south korea to target north korea and to help augment our maximum pressure campaign. you see that with this administration across the board and that's where i spend a lot of my time, but i would say that is the third

principle in looking at how to effectively implement sanctions programs. >> all the other panelists have said it's great to be here and feel these folks in the audience. i will be appear with a bunch of my friends as well. thank you all for being here. i will focus my remarks from the atlantic council perspective more on the mechanics of what dan talked about. some of the policy and let dan talk about policy. he's much more qualified to do it than i am. it just makes sense. from a mechanical standpoint one of the hallmarks of this administration is that you can really see the work of the professionals behind the actions i have happen. i think this is especially true in you to cut through some of the noise in the media. this administration, for better or worse has a much louder media presence and much more chaotic presence in the

first one. if you look through and actually see the actions that come forward, it's still the same stuff we were doing when i was in government with the obama administration and before. there's a real technical aspect that is highlight quickly, the north korean action from about two weeks ago where it was billed as a day of action ever on north korea which is true if you go by the numbers but from a sweeping standpoint probably not exactly accurate. that doesn't really matter. what matters is that it was a really significant action and i think one of the things that showed was it's the kind of action that really drives, you had an action going after the shipping network that the north uses, there's been this big focus on the shipping because that's what gets the energy procurement and it drives the nuclear program. the highly technical action so i think the administration is to be applauded for that and

one of the things i very much notice, more from the treasury side because that's where more familiar but from state as well, the senior officials are really letting the professionals, people who have been doing this for years and years and years. they've given them the running room to do the job and do the job right. think that's really encouraging when you look at how these tools are applied. all that said, i do think there are some cracks that have shown a little bit in the implementation and to be frank, i don't chop that up to a lack of expertise or willingness to let the professionals do their job. i think the resource related. sanctions are tool that everybody turns to now and every times there's a crisis, congress is what are we going to impose sanctions on. we have turned to this tool probably more often than we should hasn't been a corresponding investment in these tools. one example that i'll give and

again i think this is a resource related issue for any of you who have been in government, as you're going through a chaotic policy process, certain things may slip through the crack especially if you don't have the amount of people but with the venezuela's eo that came out you posted really smart sanctions in general on venezuela and there is a provision in there that targeted venezuelan government bonds. the issue of the implementation is that it targeted all venezuelan bonds and at the same time they released they had to issue general licensing. you have this target and x minus one is everything you are letting go. it has caused, that caused a lot of reaction in the financial industry where people were scrambling to figure out why hold bonds, do i meet the numbers on the lists, that didn't really need

to happen in those resources, both in the government our answering these questions in the financial industry itself could better implement at the sanctions. i think it's critical that the administration and congress get together and figure out a way to form this appropriately. i'm not talking about a couple million dollars here and there. what they need. >> we will take it to her on the private-sector panel on changes in things and policy. : it is no longer one discipline, but a network of overlapping laws and regulation, whether it

is sanctions, export control, anti-money laundering and security regulation. professionals in this industry must conduct global business operations and business complexity. my name is beth peters paradigm of partner at hogan levels and cochair of the international trade and invest in practice and i'm pleased to introduce this panel to you. michael greenwald, senior vice president man while management and also worked in the treasury department brings a wealth of the variance. richard, vice president national foreign trade council. fred shaheen, chief counsel, local trade, the boeing company and bob aqsa, bob walsh, deputy chief compliance officer of the group. we are going to set the context for the continued discussion on

the challenging and developing issues of the day. each person will provide background on their industry and not industry focus on particular sanction country issues they are facing on a day-to-day basis and we also want to bring some context here from a u.s. and non-us point of view because implementation and responds is very challenging depending on where you are located as the good questions from this morning and all illustrated. michael, do you want to kick us off? >> thank you. it is great to be here, again seen so many colleagues and friends. in my current position at tedium in wealth management, i don't work primarily on these issues, but other works dealing with advising schools or hospitals or

institutions committees come up all the time. whenever an institution is looking to go overseas and spread tentacles beyond the united states, there is very little education. i find that there needs to be a more proactive discussion between what we are talking about here and private industry. even though there is discussion taking place, there is not enough and i think banks and private institutions need to have the ability to proactively share more information with the government. i think that there needs to be greater education on all sides. when we talk about the russia command the greatest tool from my perspective was the uncertainty of the market. the market didn't know what hit them and i think there continues to be what allows for there to be more appetite for what is

coming next. i think also the role of the financial action task force, which we haven't touched on yet in private industry are watching it closely. the rollback plays from a private sector and how it promotes more information sharing will be very important. thank you. >> richard. >> well, listening to the conversations that preceded this conversation, i was reminded of the sanctions of ideology woodrow wilson and i used my iphone to look up the quote that i had forgotten because my memory doesn't work anymore. the quote is a nation that was in spite of surrender applied this economic peaceful silent deadly remedy and there will be

no need for force. it is a terrible remedy. it does not cost a life outside the nation boycotted, but pressure upon the nation, which in my judgment no modern nation can resist. wilson said that in the context of the league of nations talking about activity with respect to a rogue nation ied equivalents if you will the unprecedented u.n. sanctions on the rogue nation north korea. that reminds me in turn of a of sanctions, at the top of the list, u.n. authorized national security council proves that you can't get there, the multilateral sanctions notably in 2014, which is executives in nature.

and were done under the stewardship of ambassador to free which is how we met late in your career. if you don't have multilateral, you have the discovery that was made in the future in fact was asked by stuart lee b. in the secretary to financial intelligence. and i took place between the house and the senate when it came to the financial edition of sanctions in the iran state. in 2010 i.e. if you don't have multilateral sanctions, then use the privileged position of the u.s. financial done in the world as the reserve currency and the

next transition and you alluded to this in your remarks about the threat and the uncertainty and the cloud often carry a force multiplier in terms of the effects of sanctions. time-limited from the point of view of the companies comprise the national foreign trade council, sanctions are at root in the private sector. they are responsibility that has to be taken seriously. they are all so, let's be clear, an unfunded mandate. we don't get a treasury department appropriation to quote the added cover cost of compliance nor the market opportunities that are lost as a result of sanctions. my third point in terms of pecking order.

we've had conversations in the first panel about the role ms. rosenberg alluded to this. don't ignore congress and congress' role both as they disrupt dirt and an innovator and that is certainly the case. it was after all the original iran sanctions act that innovated, if you will, the idea that secondary i.e. extraterritorial sanctions and in the same year that berg memorialized as a matter of law what had been the u.s. executive branch embargo in cuba. so there is this tension, executive and congressional. again in terms of the pecking order and the private sector is to adapt and not be surprised and have constructive conversation in the application of sanctions come executive is

better than congressional. and again, stands as a remarkable testament today is in the sense that ambassador freed indicated sanctions are a tool and may have to be done in a concerted effort with the diplomacy and if that's going to take place they have to be adopted. now we've had 50 years of the unilateral embargo of the island and the result speaks for itself and were unable, even with the divided republican conference politically were unable to repeal. my last point and mrs. the innovative side and it ties to the russian space and ambassador freed alluded to this, which is follow the money.

if you're dealing with the situation, which is a huge -- as far on nurses and the audience, a huge amount, nontrivial and the hundreds of billions of dollars exported from russia into safe havens which happened to be those countries that follow the rule of law i.e. including a may be first among equals, and the united states. then you might want to do some pain in the anti-money money laundering front that you haven't done yet. only congress can do that by addressing the issue of beneficial ownership when it comes to shell corporations. i'll stop there. >> banks, bad. first of all, thanks to beth and

andrew keller and ambassador freed for the indication. it's a great honor for me personally to be here. having said that, beth had to catch me trying to exit the last panel. i just didn't want to follow that act. it is a pleasure to be here. i am not in -- in the interest of full disclosure i'm a practicing attorney. my focus is on the trade control guy in the law department for the boeing company. so my world is export, import sanctions. i've been at polling nine years in parts of that was the private practice, but it's interesting that the data point how much time i spend on sanctions in an interpreted work in sanctions legislation now if compared to just four years, five years when i first came to boeing. i would say this is probably the majority of my time spent on

neither interpretation because we have a footprint all over the world as you all know and not only that, but there's so much going on. i mean come you really just have to keep out. keeping up not just on the rags, but what is coming down the pike from the congress. the good news is in all the time i've been in this business and it's been a long time before i will admit in this public space. i've never had a better bunch of government partners and we have. and i call them partners specifically. andrea, peter, andrew when he was at the state department, sandra zero kurt, the list goes on and on in the state and other agencies as well because our

position at the company on sanctions, regardless of what sanction program it is is that we follow the lead in the u.s. government. this is not something we are interested in being trailblazers on. and so, to have the kind of talent, professional talent i really need to give that a shout out because we couldn't do what we do without that. that kind of wish andrew was back there so i could still call him. last point i will make and i will stop is again, my babies from the inside of a company, how do you deal with this? i want to leave you with one thought as i left my colleague to my left ear both in his statement and that is my challenge is not the u.s.

government for the congress. it's my internal customers, my program guides, my folks that are in the business of selling aircraft or satellite or you name it and getting them to understand what they can do, what they can't do in an average changing dynamic regulatory and legislative environment. and so, i would be less than honest if i didn't say it was fun because guess what, there's been a change. what you mean there's a change? we talked about the sanctions program a month ago. in my world lately, that is an eternity, so things are moving fast. i would like to go back to the theme on how to do with the business, how to set expectations and ultimately with suppliers and with customer base around the world.

>> thanks, beth. and thanks to the atlantic council for having this event. i also found that first panel just really great and that's the mean reason i am here to have a first panel. the reason i was asked to be part of this panel is less to do with what i do at my day job and i chaired an industry group called the sanctions roundtable which is comprised of most of the global insurance sector and so maybe i bring a little bit about that particular industry. i wanted to start when i looked at the agenda before coming, it was about this year that's gone by. i wanted to comment a little bit about the washington people that we talked to. the state staffers have been

great. they've continued to engage with us. they've been professional. they've tried very hard to be helpful as well talk about in a second. there is a new limits on the ability to be helpful. i would like to mention as well in this relatively new for our set your hotel staffs have also been a congressional staff have reached out to her sector to try to understand the implications. that has different sides to it, but that is the positive thing. i will mention as well and i didn't know about this before, but the u.n. security council staff has put together a small group of industry people, including me, to help them understand how to make their sanctions effective. and so, those are all positive developments. one of the good things about a change and ration is all sorts

of really good administration go to the private sector and so we talked to them and say what do we do? there are some really good people out there. i wanted them to make another point about how we look at this whole subject. there are two sides. there is the here and now, what can he do today, what can you not do today. a lot of good help on not from advisers. but the other side of it is where do we want to go and would we want to be? for that side of things, as brian o'toole talked about, others talked about it, a degree of predictability. you know, there are other issues that get in the way. there's the complexity of sanctions that may be caused it to back away. there could be conflict of law issues, particularly if you think about the fact the global commercial insurance sector

which is mainly talking about insurance sanctions is mostly non-us. the complexity of issues are important. to just been talk for a second about predict ability and this is how i frame it. if i understand correctly when you think of credit ratings there are only two aaa ratings. the reason is it's too expensive to be aaa. guess what, if companies have a aaa compliant program, like zero. the reason is that too expensive. we can't get it all right. so we decide what we are going to get right and what we are not going to do and we back away. the sanctions a visor that out regarding north korea, excellent. that is one of the best things i've seen is a really to the insurance sector. we will do two things.

new types of due diligence and back away from activities and maybe i forget one of the panelists before talk about, i forget how they framed it, but intentional engagement in consequence. i think maybe there are some unintended backing away that will happen in her sector in relation to north korea. the last thing i want to say about predictability was let's think about last week's announcement and assume something guesswork data we have something like jc poa with north korea and people from state and treasury go on a road show and say we want you to engage. please engage. we didn't have a very good experience and those were fantastic people in collaboration go to it.

i think not only do you need partners to make that agreement with north korea work. it's going to be may war work data was with iran. >> great. dig into this a little bit deeper. we thought we would see if there were some comments about the different engagement. has your engagement on sanctions policy under the terms administration as compared to previous administrations changed or has that been the same on sanctions policy? >> i think when it comes to the administration as the previous panel spoke about, we have tremendous professionals working on the technocratic issues. i think what makes this space so special is that for many, many years prior to the iran deal, it was truly nonpolitical. you saw the votes in congress than they were hugely bipartisan. i think when it comes to how

this administration is cooperating with private industries, it is very proactive. there is more that and the administration is bringing in private sector even more to have those conversations. so from my experience, having recently left. >> does anyone else want to comment? >> i'm sitting here thinking that i think our first engagements on trade three was actually three and a half years ago roughly indifferent administration. i think two things. number one, a lot of professionals are still the same. so they were great before, great now. i do think that a lot of new issues, their reach out to industry has been terrific. i think it has been, you know,

it is interesting. i have young lawyers who work for me who think it was always like this and i go back to the days some of you can remember some of my generation when this ability to reach in and if your oem like we are, but for anybody to go when engage in meeting 10, 15 years ago wasn't quite so easy. i think it is great and it's been pretty consistent with this new administration as well. >> so the impact -- >> i was just going to reiterate and they can be specific in terms of the people in the state in terms of treasury, both political and career, to a level of effective communications.

i can't say that in terms of other parts of the executive branch. in terms of congress, they say. you just have to keep up with who is doing what in terms of the committee staff and the individual members that take on responsibilities. but that is steady-state anon diminished. >> i want to turn to a global trade and investment. obviously sanctions makes this very complicated. you have certain partners who are not using u.s. origin, good software technology, trying to use u.s. dollar denominated transactions and this is leading to transit the risky and an wanted you all to make some commentary. you want to go first in that regard? >> yeah, this is something we've had lots of discussions with

staff, not just in the last year, but for his state treasury and i think staffers talk to them. if you look at the global insurance industry in parts of the world where those transactions used to be in dollars increasingly were to material extent we are seen other currencies into that. and not just for payments, but actually denomination. once we create the capability to do that business in other currencies, why would you go back? i don't say that cynically. it is probably a lower risk. that is one tangible and to be blunt, there is geographic risky and then that doesn't necessarily mean countries. it can mean certain territorial

waters in other areas as well. >> michael. >> i returned over the summer from the golf than i thought first tee and institutions and parts of the country that want to work with the u.s. institutions, but because there are still statements, they can't. once they leave the bank then go to the informal sector, it becomes a true vulnerability. so i think we need to continue to have more conversations taking place the last several years. but it is truly a risk once it does become informal and i don't think we've been able, gotten our hands around gephardt to bring them to the fold. >> so another issue to come up about business is obviously predictability and lack of being

able to plan. sanctions as you know can target a country, territory come industry cracked this and also designate individuals and companies regardless of location without advance notification. how do your industries address this complexity and work to shape the interpretation of sanctions so that you can do the next day and meet your global needs? richard, do you want to take that? >> we've had some discussions of the difference between the executive initiated sanctions and congressional initiated. we had a case study in which you are directly alluding to with the passage last summer, where not to get into the weeds, but there has been a process

underway within the confines of the senate banking committee, which has primary jurisdiction to craft a deliberative and all use conservative small sense of the word. when the iran sanctions bill, which had received equally careful vetting and senate foreign relations reached the floor, then all bets are off in the russia space and in the space of two days you had that 98 to two vote on something patched together by principles shooing staff away and you have been frankly something that's it the admonition that bad cases make bad law. that being said, it then moved to implementation and that is when the professionals, a few live, did themselves proud in

what i'm talking about professionals, and talking about treasury, state department commerce that had to come out with guidance in terms of implementation. the level of interaction with the affected business community was unprecedented and it was construct is and i think it is shown to date section 241 notwithstanding, but then again that comes back to my little curiosity about follow the money. >> it's an interesting discussion. i would say from the group that i work with, we actually equate congressional sanctions for different reasons. we can get into that.

i want to make another comment on may 12 the waivers are assigned. i am already hearing suggestions that some european government are going to be pushing european headquarter organization. you are going to stay engaged with iran. that will place us in an impossible position. ambassador freeh talked about an aggressive use of this. but there is a point when we start the tool that strikes me. i'm not a state department policy person. but in that way, if for example other superpowers start to use secondary sanctions as a policy tool, it is like the trade war. just planning in that type of the context. >> i think it is really being again off of the deck place

where i operate. there is a risk as a prime contractor. there is risk as a supplier. there's risk as a financial and duchenne who want to do business with us. sanctions related to transactions or perhaps a transaction that needs some authorization, if you have -- if you're for. if x years, usually one to two to three to four, whatever. ..

these are such highly sensitive political issues. that then leads us, as a company, as the manufacture into the position of trying to convince third parties, come along for the ride, i need you, i need the thing you make for the thing i make or i need your bank to move money from point a to point b and the response is, i don't know. it's kind of like, in a lot of cases the reaction from the lawyers of the other side is a higher very smart people to

come up with terms and conditions where i take the risk. i'm taking the risk is the manufacturer that, if this license, this authorization is not renewed on a transaction, then i'm on the hook and that's very difficult. when it comes to uncertainty, i don't know what the workaround is. it's unrealistic to expect any administration to give you a license for multiple years, technical assistance or state department or something that's not sanction related. >> what's turned to the hill.

is the business community given the importance of support on the nuclear sanctions, can you comment on activity and start off about and support with your members. >> business is not about setting policy. given the terms and conditions in the jcp away, when there was never a hope for the removal of primary sanctions on us-based communities, not a hope, we have an interest in

congress being successful in being successful in what has been achieved. you have to watch the space in any case because russia hasn't gone away. replaying what occurred in 2017, it hasn't gone away. political outlook for what it is worth, watch that space.

>> michael. >> i think we have to be cautious when it comes to how we are deploying it and how much we are deploying it. what are the economic consequences on the hill that may not be taking place. it's a delicate balance between the two. >> to richard's comment, on the private sector, our job is not policy, companies get involved with discussions, how our discussions at the hill? it has been to try to make

sure they understand nuances of our sector and what the ramifications are. i think that matters a lot talking about the increased complexity and targeting of sanctions. sanctions have come of age. they need to understand the nuances of your industry because we have a common interest. >> i just echo what robert said it has been very

constructive and has been for years, several folks we deal with are in the audience today. i want to piggyback on what he said about understanding industry when we first engaged the jcp away, we had multiple conversations with andrew and others at state and treasury about how you build and sell commercial airplanes. there was a real education that had to go on, you can expect anybody to know that if you weren't in the industry. same with the russian sanctions talking to folks on the hill, trying to explain what would be impacted. did you even know about what we do there or what our industry does in that sector?

that's a good thing. i see more of that than less of it and so, i think if there is a theme, and we heard it in the first panel than others i don't think they want unintended consequences but we in industry take seriously our role, however small or large and that means whoever the drafters are or the committee and the senate role. it's so instrumental. my last comment is, i've never seen them better or more robust so i sure hope as we go forward, that is the new normal. i see that on this administration making that approach. >> and i had one more, which

is i agree and yet to the extent sanctions have come of age, the approach remains ad hoc today. it's the way that industries engage, the decision to make working outreach and i think maybe there needs to be something more than ad hoc to ensure if sanctions will become to a greater extent that are being sanctioned and highly targeted to have something a little more systematic. or maybe a exist and i'm not aware of it. i think there needs to be something more systematic to ensure such things continue. >> you think that's a particularly good point on engagement because these companies and the business community are local.

there really are no borders and one of the issues the weather has different forms of sanctions now are trickling down to forced labor prohibitions on imports and conflict minerals and the supply chain and who your business partners are, beneficial ownership, have you done screening, do you want to comment on your industry dealing with u.s. and non-us supply chain and business partner issues related to sanctions which mark. >> what's to the supply chain first. any different product we have 8000 supply chains at various different levels. there is a tension. i talked about risk and risk allocation earlier. just on education, we have a huge infrastructure at boeing. we have 200 people who do trade control, just trade control plus local, you can

swing that was someone in the compliance organization. it's good but it's true of a lot of big aerospace companies. how about the ones, the first or second or third tier. we don't have the resources to have that kind of resource. what do they do, they have a tendency to look to us for legal advice. they don't ask for it in that way. they don't say hey, they're not talking to the law department, they're talking to our purchasing, our supply organization looking for the best price for the best item, whatever that happens to be. though say is this going to go into an airplane that's going to russia, is not a problem, just as an example. they want us to basically advise them and i said there's attention there, our suppliers

as partners. at the end of the day, last i checked there is a must no shortage of attorneys available in the united states to be hired to go do this so at some point, they need and we tactfully let them know they need to get their own counsel. we will always tell them and i pride myself on this, we are not the kind of company, on a given regulatory issue, we will tell you. you may or may not agree with that but the end of the day it's up to you as that supplier, particularly in something as volatile as quickly changing and nuanced as sanctions related activities. .1, they've got to do their own homework. we have to find the right line on how much we can help with that and point them in the

right direction. somewhere in there is the right formula. the formula for us may not be the formula for your company or one size does not fit all but i think the concept does fit all and you've got to be partners with your supply chain and if you have a difference of agreement, if you just can't get to where you both want to be, there's a number of options including going to the regular layer to adjudicate that. they been helpful in that happens. >> in my sector, i don't really have the supply chain issues but there are solvable inefficiencies and how industry complies with sanctions. again, if sanctions have come of age, i think there's just an opportunity to think about it so all use an example that

is relevant to my world. this is all day, every day. when boeing gets its master insurance policy around the world, there will be ten or more insurance companies on that syndicate. it's always been the case, we don't rely on boeing, we don't rely, and you know what, sometimes it's not worth the trouble so we disengage. i'm not recommending a reliance regime. we are actually having this discussion of the status level now on the review of the insurance sector, but i think there's room for original thinking about what are some ways of approaching this which will allow the good business to happen without the risking where we don't want to happen. >> thank you. now we want to open it up for q&a. if you can say your name and

affiliation, right here's the question. >> thank you. to the atlantic council, great panel. one comment and a quick question. it seems to me, having worked in the congress and, we are about one indictment plus one administration misstep on russia sanctions from another very serious effort to push sanctions to the congress. that's how i sort of see it. if you have any reaction to that. i'm also interested in whether you are tracking venezuela sanctions. it seems like that was a skillful deployment in august of a series of financial sanctions and now i see the secretary of state is talking about will sanctions. to me, the policy lessons over and over that policymakers who may not be sanctioned types

are drawing that sanctions are very, very effective and let's do more, not less. i'm interested in your venezuela comments especially. >> venezuela is iraq and hard place. there has been no ability in terms of the diplomatic engagement, regionally or globally. there has been no ability to get a dialogue going between the fractured opposition and the increasingly isolated regime. meanwhile, the country is a approaching hyper inflation in the human cost is documented in the new york times and it's incalculable. that being said, how do you change the status quo.

that's why the secretary puts energy sanctions on the table in terms of the u.s. because uniquely it is only u.s. downstream that pays full price for the venezuelan basket. the diminishing basket which is the only supply of cash to the country. if you were to shut that off and take that to crony and measure, what happens within the country. can anybody gain that out? >> i think the sanctions on venezuela has been targeted and i think they're really starting to be effective. i think the administration is quite creative with regards to what they're doing in venezuela.

i would expect to see more with regards to that, one thing we haven't touched on, and i'm not saying in this case, but it's the use of the patriot act. i think it's a very effective tool, i think it changes behavior immediately and it puts institutions and jurisdictions on notice like never before seen. think the administration use of that tool, going forward would be very important to watch. >> can i add, regarding russia and venezuela, i would say it's my sense for my sector that some targeted sanctions aren't that hard for industry and some targeted sanctions are very, very hard. from a policymaker point of view and even from a not affect point of view, there are reasons why it's wiser to

use targeted sanctions that are easier. i would say, for example, the debt and equity sanctions, and i have colleagues would like to punch me in the no's but i would say they've not been so terribly difficult and maybe that's a tool that would be good going forward. >> another question. >> hi, thanks for your comments. would you all talk a little bit about what you see in your clients and members or other anecdotes from industry about how companies are looking forward to the may deadline for rollover of the waivers giving relief to foreign

businesses, what kind of hedging or risk management practices you see going on, how would banking change, what about people who are doing oil trade and refiners, european refiners specifically. how are they thinking about what happens in a day after scenario. >> they are all looking at their language and their agreements. if they forgot to look at that the first time. they are certainly in active dialogue with their business communities. within their supply chain and trying to understand and confirm whether there's u.s. content, how it applies and some people are very happy they never engaged in the first place and others are hoping for the best and

bracing for the worst. do you want to speak out from different industry point of view. >> and the precedent that will be set, how we handled the waiver and what happens in may in going forward and how we are using this tool, industry in the world is watching and i think that's something to keep in mind each time and again is what type of example are we making. >> now i'm talking about non-us based entities that have a significant u.s. presence. the cost-benefit is simple. >> i've had conversations about whether some people in this room, this is really important for the insurance sector and even more important for their client base.

one thing is, i guess, whether the guidance around the snap act applies or we can assume it would apply that we would get guidance thing that's a reasonable set of assumptions in that scenario. i don't know if anybody's here. >> is that something you can talk about a little bit. >> met snap act. do you want to make a left,. >> obviously, i can't talk about specifics but it's a great question. it's maybe the question. i hate to beat the drum, but we will follow the lead of the u.s. government. they decide that's how were going to comport ourselves because at the end of the day that's how we've done it up

till now for the past two half or three years and that's how we will continue to do it. i'll be honest, i'm relatively confident that we will get the guidance we need to do whatever necessary based on the may 5 decision or after. so, it's uncertainty in the business world, we don't like uncertainty but all things considered we are prepared for what happened so we know our partners in the government are going to help us get through those. >> any other questions for the panel. >> i think we had, in closing, some of the biggest uncertainty on the jcp away and whether waivers will be

issued. we also talk a little bit about china and designations there and how that affects the global economy. does anyone want to make some final parting words? >> i think the die dong thank in that example is something that really targeted i think that what we've done, that is something they will continue to turn back to you. i think the channe china example is something really important. >> i want to thank the panel. if everyone can please stay seated, the investor will come to the stage to introduce our keynote speaker.

[inaudible conversations] will waking. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> it is my great pleasure to introduce the secretary in the

u.s. government, someone who has the good luck to be in charge of a deeply competent organization in treasury and the bad luck with the issue of no matter how well you do it will never satisfy everybody. that's just life. she is exceptionally qualified. southern district of new york attorneys office, counselor to dhs secretary, deputy assistant attorney general and lots more. she has one other qualification which i want to emphasize. i suspect that undersecretary, she knows the public policy counts. not inside the washington beltway, not in terms of reputation, influence, the next job, but counts for people. when you get it right, millions of people benefit and when policy goes wrong, people

end up in bad places or dead. lots of them, and real fast. i suspect she understands that, which is the essential ingredient to differentiate someone who simply does a job and someone who helps change the world. that's what public policy can be about. with that, and my appreciation for coming, the floor is yours. >> thank you dan. that is one of the kindest and most meaningful introductions i have ever received. i greatly rate appreciate it. thank you for inviting me too speak. as many of you know, the office of terrorism and financial intelligence is a

close-knit family and it's always terrific to speak at an event with so many treasury alumni. i am going to start today with a bit of a history lesson. it's a history that i learned in my early months as secretary. it is part of the fabric of our organization and it helped shape the framework in which i view our mission and the way we execute our mission. it starts in 1940 during world war ii, a small group of very smart professio professionals at treasury led by john paley and under the direction of then secretary henry warden powell recognized they could use economic authorities under the trading with the enemy act to prevent nazis from seizing

u.s. held assets of countries that the nazis were invading. and so they set up an administrative agency called the office of foreign funds control, following the issuance of an executive order that prohibited financial transactions related to countries that germany occupied. the treasury department, back then required financial institutions to freeze those assets to ensure that these funds didn't fall into nazi hands. they were able to seize and freeze aliens of dollars including in a number of dramatic ways. this was the predecessor agency to what we now know as the assets of foreign control or oh fact.

the treasury department didn't stop there. in 1943, after learning that jewish children were in hiding in nazi occupied europe, that same group of professionals resolved to find a way to use their authorities to help save those jewish children. they were asked to issue a license that funds be made available to, among other things help jewish children escape nazi -controlled europe. they worked for months to secure this authorization and enable the funds to be released to support this effort. overcoming significant obstacles within the u.s. government to do so.

having learned through this work about the atrocities happening in europe, secretary morgan bell, john paley and others believed that the government should do much more. in late 1943 an early 1944, they push for the establishment of the refugee board. this board was led by john caley and other members of the team and played an instrumental role in saving the lives of thousands of holocaust survivors in the years of world war ii. at the very same time that these efforts were underway at the treasury department, my parents were jewish children hiding in europe.

they were hiding undergrounds in the forest and haystacks and they were also hidden by courageous individuals who risked their own lives to save my parents and others. that my parents survived is nothing short of a miracle. to learn that there was a group in the treasury department in the office that i now oversee, working steadily to use the government's economic authorities to save jewish children in hiding and others is truly remarkable and incredibly humbling. the work of others at the treasury department during world war ii provides the framework under which i view our role of tsi today. they recognized that the

treasury department. they worked strategically, smartly to figure out how to use those authorities in the most impactful ways. that is an important element of the approach that we are employing today, but with much more robust tools. components today include o fax, the office of terrorists financing crimes, and asset forfeiture. within the components we have a broad array or of tools across a broad spectrum including patriot act authorities like section 311 and 314 amb, enforcement,

engagement, policy, intelligence and analysis and other regulatory authorities. i view their authorities as operating as part of one continuum. for every problem that we face, whether it's terrorists financing, proliferation, human rights abuses, corruption and others, we are strategically applying and integrating those tools best suited to the problem and in complementary ways. it is the only office of its type in the world that combines such a broader work rate of economic tools and components. i always say congress and the executive branch acted with tremendous vision into thousand four when they put the components under one roof.

this was truly a revolutionary development. counterterrorism and national security had traditionally been in the realm of foreign affairs defense, intelligence and law enforcement. treasuries authorities were brought together under one simple concept. bad actors cannot operate without funding. and so, just as secretary did so many years ago, after 911, tsi set off to cut the terrorist access from the u.s. financial system by deploying new tools as well as long-held authorities with a renewed energy and strategic outlook. today, to counter the threats that we face across the globe, for murderous dictators praying on their own citizens, weapons proliferators like kim

jong-un threatening the united states and our allies, murdering the innocent and others, we work steadily to assess and analyze each threat. we use intelligence and other information and employ a range of tools in innovative ways, constantly adapting to ensure they are properly synchronized and calibrated to bring maximum economic leverage to bear. we also collaborate closely with our partners and inner agency, with allies across the world and with the private sector to amplify our actions in a number of different ways. to further promote this and find new ways to pressure our adversaries, we are also standing up within the treasuries existing structure.

the si use will focus on threats and systemic risks. these will harness deep expertise and complex areas and working together they will review mri and recommend strategies to further calibrate our economic authority. they will regularly assess our actions to sharpen our efforts and tactics. the use of our authorities must be part of the broader strategic plan. as i have said a number of times, sanctions alone are not a form policy. sanctions are a tool. among our many authorities that we use to achieve particular objectives. they are part of the strategies that include our other economic authorities, diplomacy, intelligence,

law-enforcement and other elements of national power. let me give you a few examples of how we are using our authorities in innovative and integrated ways to address the challenges we face. i will start with north korea. the north koreans told our allies that they will refrain from testing nuclear weapons and willing to do nuclear eyes. they have made such promises in the past but we will have the chance to test their sincerity now that president trump has accepted an invitation. it's clear that our campaign has brought us to this juncture. it poses an urgent threat to which we are using the entire arsenal of our authorities. the kim regime built up their nuclear and ballistic program

with little oversight. they have been launching missiles over our allies and has boasted its weapons of mass destruction can reach american cities. inside north korea they have developed a brutal state apparatus to coerce, control and punish ordinary citizens at any who might contemplate the scent. it is estimated that tens of thousands of political prisoners are detained in an elaborate network of prison camps. just one of which is three times the size of washington d.c. according to the united nations, inmates in these camps have been subject to deliberate starvatio starvation, forced labor, execution, torture, rape and forced abortion. when facing a regime and leaders who prioritize power over people, we have brought all of our economic authorities to bear to change their calculus and siphon off

the funds that enable them to continue to proliferate. we cannot tolerate the threats of this regime, armed with nuclear weapons and what it poses to the citizens of the world. together we have been intensifying our maximum pressure campaign until north korea achieves complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. just two weeks ago we announced the largest sanctions package ever in the north korea program. as part of this package, we designated one individual, 27 entities and 28 vessels abroad. it was located in registered flags across the globe. we couple this action with other tools to achieve maximum effect. on that same day, ambassador haley nominated these vessels to be listed at the un. we also issued a global

shipping advisory along with our colleagues in the state department and the u.s. coast guard, highlighting to the world north korea's deceptive shipping practices. after our designations, i met with representatives from jurisdictions of those designated entities to urge them to take swift action against those entities to the extent that they had not already done so. we are synchronizing our actions in these and other ways with our interagency partners to maximize the impact of these crucial economic authorities. these actions have built on our full-court effort. we have amplified this in many ways. this includes the actions we

have taken in section three and the patriot act including cutting off a chinese bank from the u.s. financial institution when we found it was a money laundering institution. just a few weeks ago we again used this authority to identify a bank that had processed transactions for parties connected to north korea as a primary money laundering concern and to propose similar restrictions. we have also enlisted the private sector, providing information to financial institutions to highlight how north korea disguises, moves and launders funds to finance its nuclear and ballistic missile program. i have also conducted a number of private sector roundtables including, in my recent travel to asia and europe where i tell financial institutions they need to be extraordinarily vigilant to make sure north korea is not

moving money to their banks. we also worked closely with the un, g7 to encourage strict implementation and compliance standards for counter proliferation financing. while our sanctions 311 actions, advisories, and extensive outreach are each powerful, by bringing them all to bear on the kim regime, we magnify the impact of our pressure campaign. it is starting to have an impact. turning to iran, in iran, the regime and islamic revolutionary guard corps, the irg c has spread its tentacles across the middle east. they promote instability in syria and support murderous president. the irg c contribute to violence and instability in yemen by sending military equipment and having engaged

in a large-scale counterfeiting scheme. they provide upwards of 700 million. year to hezbollah which continues to threaten our closed ally israel including using rockets supplied to target cities. at the same time the is ronnie iranian regime suppresses dissent at home. iranian citizens have taken to the streets, loudly shouting they have had enough of the regime corruption and financial support for foreign proxies prints many have done so at grave risk to their own lives as the regime has thrown protesters in jail, violently censored its people who seek to freely protest and much worse. this administration has designated targets in the middle east, asia, and europe in connection with the irg c and around support for

terrorism, ballistic missile programs, human rights abuses, censorship, cyber attacks and transnational activity. to push back, we magnify our powerful sanctions with our international engagement and clear messaging to the private sector. there is no transparency to speak of in iran and there are massive deficiencies in their anti- money laundering regime. the irg c has a presence in the economy which is obscured by this lack of transparency. in our engagements both here in the united states and abroad, we have made clear that companies doing business in iran face substantial risks and we hold those knowingly doing business with them that finance the regime activities to account.

for over a decade, the status has highlighted the terrorist financing risk emanating from iran and the threat that it poses to the international financial systems. a threat so significant that countermeasures imposed when iran committed to an action plan to address its significant deficiencies. at the same time they remained on the blacklist. just two weeks ago, they concluded that they had failed to fulfill its commitment to the status to implement its action plan. the onus of responsibility falls upon iran. it is specifically called out iran for failing to address the majority of its action plan requirements. for the first time ever in a public statement, the status provided a comprehensive list of the major deficiencies and

reiterating the fac the threat this poses. they need to be passed and implemented. we are also very focused on pursuing russia to destabilize ukraine, meddle in election and human rights abuses. they have sanctioned individuals and entities are in addition to our other sanctions to hold them accountable.

most recently on jerry 262018, we sanctioned 42 individuals and entities including clear violation of our sanctions. the following week we submitted a report on access of political figures and oligarchs in the russian federation. this extensive report which was correlated closely with the intelligence committee including our office of intelligence and analysis contains an extremely thorough analysis that is being used to inform future targeted sanctions. we have taken other vigorous steps to implement this. during the fall of 2017 they re- issued directives one, two and four of the sanctions. further tightening restrictions on industries

such as energy and finance. our targeting of companies around the world include though facts designated independent petroleum, a russian company that signed a contract to provide oil to north korea and reportedly shipped petroleum products to north korea we are calling on russia. these action build on our whole of government action to counter aggression. venezuela. in venezuela the maduro regime

undermines democracy, impoverish its citizens and lose the country to line its pockets. the assault on democracy combined with the irresponsible economic policies have had a devastating impact on venezuela. essential goods such as food, medicine have become increasingly scarce. food scarcity is no accident. the regime. to counter his assaults on democracy and his own people, we are using our sanctions authorities to target those in

the regime responsible for country's dire economic, social and political situations as well as those engaging in illicit activity. and second terminations first day in office, he announced the designation of venezuela executive vice president for playing a significant role in international narcotic trafficking and the designation of his front man. there designation disrupted their ability to launder illicit proceeds and hundreds of millions of dollars in assets associated have since been blocked. since then, we have sanctioned 44 more current and former officials including maduro himself. most recently we announced for senior military officers on january 5, 2018. we amplified this pressure to a powerful executive order

that denies the regime critical sources of financing and protects the u.s. financial system. this executive order limits the ability of the government and its companies, including the energy sector to secure financing from international markets. it also cuts the regime off from important revenue streams. in september, another amplifying action since then issued an advisory to alert financial institutions of widespread public corruptions in venezuela and the methods that senior political figures and their associates may used to move and hide proceeds of their corruption. at the grave expense of the venezuelan people. combined with our powerful targeted sanctions and other public messaging, this advisory put financial institutions on watch for possible illicit fund flows.

at the same time that we are taking action through our economic authorities, we are also working with our international partners to bring additional partners, including through multilateral sanctions on the regime. turning to global corruption and other global corruptions and human rights abuses, into many countries across the world, innocence lives under fear of arbitrary kidnapping and imprisonment, deprivation, starvation, forced labor and torture and even execution. corrupt political leaders and their families embezzle their country's wealth at the expense of their citizens. illicit traffickers prey upon innocent people, selling them into slavery or the sex trade. they even exploit them for their organs. such serious human rights

abuses undermine the foundation of stable secure and functioning society. they devastate individuals, weekend democratic institutions and degrade the rules of law. they perpetuate violent conflict and undermine economic markets. they threaten the integrity of the u.s. and international financial systems. this administration is undertaking a campaign against those who prey on the vulnerable and violate the inalienable rights of their citizens. we are imposing financial consequence on those who pillage the wealth and resources of their people and generate ill-gotten profits from corruption, cronyism and criminal activity. in december 2017, president trump signed an executive order implementing the global human rights accountability

act, authorizing sanctions on persons involved or complicit in serious human rights abuses or corruptions across the world. as part of that announcement, this administration imposed sanctions on 52 individuals and entities. they include alien air dan butler who amassed his fortune through hundreds of millions of dollars worth of opaque deals in the democratic of the congo. he was president of nicaraguans supreme electoral council and has been accused of amassing sizable personal wealth and has been described as a nicaraguan comptroller general as above the law. burmese army official oversaw military actions against the

ringo were widespread extradition killings, sexual violence, and arbitrary arrests were alleged to have taken place. treasuries designations send a powerful message to those who flagrantly abused human rights or line their pockets with registers at the expense of the innocent. human rights abusers and the corrupt are unnoticed. we are watching and we will take action. these designations are about impact. these sanctions have directly affected the ability of these corrupt individuals to access their funds. we couple these efforts to combat human rights abusers in the corrupt with our other authorities. just as an authority, they issued an advisory in september 20 alongside her sanctions. there's potential exposure.

we also. they impact action through coordination of our international partners. we are now working with the eu and other like-minded partners to encourage them to develop similar authorities of their own. additionally we conduct extensive outreach to our international partners following the publication of treasury action. just as an example, after the september 2017 actions against south susa sudanese political figures, we immediately engaged with neighboring governments asking them to investigate the illicit flows from the senior figures into their countries.

every day we are using to targe target. [inaudible] we have made great progress against these groups including crisis, identifying and disrupting isis financial facilitation networks in iraq, syria and anywhere isis operates. we will continue to target these terrorist organizations. we want to share information with our domestic and international partners.

we amplify the impact of sanctions and the measures the international cooperation and coronation. the important initiative fostering this is the terrorist financing targeting center, a collaborative approach to addressing the evolving threats arriving from financing. it's a joint effort between gcc countries and through it, we have already taken coordinated multilateral action to disrupt action. all members of the tft's he designated 13 leaders, financers and facilitators of the isis, yemen who were directly responsible for picture waiting the violence plaguing yemen and threatening the security of the entire region. this initiative is a top

national security priority for this administration. we are continuing to work with all countries to fully realize the vision for the tfts c. as you can see, treasury authorities continue to serve as some of this administration's top non- kinetic tools of choice. as we continually strive to be even more impactful, we also need to add to our resources. deploying our authorities takes tremendous amount of hard work, strategic thinking and intelligence. it involves collaboration with law-enforcement and intelligence community. that is why we have asked congress for more resources. the administration recently requested 25 million above the president's fy 2018 budget to fund it and immediately deploy

resources to counter threats posed by north korea. the president's fy 2019 budget request of 40 million increase from our current operating level. if we continue to use our authorities for maximum impact while attracting the best talent and mines too focused tediously on the abuse of our authorities, we need more people and even better tools. at a town hall a few months ago, i also started my remarks by speaking about the history of this great organization. i asked that each person in the room put themselves in the shoes of those treasury officials over 70 years ago who found strategic and innovative ways to deploy economic authorities to keep assets out of the hands of bad actors and to say victims of

the holocaust. as i asked them to put themselves in the shoes of john pele and others, i reminded them that is exactly where they are today. there are terrible things happening around the world right now and we live in a time where there are great threats to our country. each one of our career professionals stand as an important part of the mission to keep not only our country safe, but to prevent and deter other threats around the world by illicit actors and financiers. we are dedicated to taking our work further. i could not be any prouder to lead this effort. thank you. [applause]

>> that was excellent. it means my suspicions were right. you know what it's about. thank you for that speech. that was just terrific. colleagues and all of who are listening, i believe that concludes our program for today. i hope it has been useful. the atlantic council will be continuing its work on sanction sanctions, both issue specific, general best practices, business perspective and we invite you all to participate. it is great to be here with so many colleagues, friends and associates. thank you all for coming. that concludes today's program.

[applause] >> the u.s. added 313,000 jobs last month. that is the most since july 2016. at the same time, hundreds of thousands of people entered the job market through the unemployment rate remains unchanged at 4.1%. the bureau of labor statistics announced the february jobs number this morning. cspan, where history unfolds daily. in 1979, cspan was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington

d.c. and around the country. cspan is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. >> coming up later today on our companion network cspan, today's white house briefing with press secretary sarah sanders is scheduled to begin at 2:00 p.m. eastern. when it starts you can see it live on c-span. after that, a group of young chicago residents discuss gun violence in their community at an event hosted by the brookings institution predators at 3:00 p.m. eastern. it's also live on c-span. >> sunday night on q&a, former u.s. border patrol agent francisco talks about his book the line becomes a river, a memoir of his expenses and what he has learned about his immigration systems since leaving the border patrol. >> the woman was pregnant. that's why she can keep up. they were lost for three days after the group lesson, they were drinking filthy water from camel tanks and they made

it to a village in the border patrol was called and i was the agent who was supposed to take them in. i started talking with them and it turned out that this pregnant woman had grown up in iowa and spoke perfect english. she was a schoolteacher in iowa. i think her husband saw that we were talking and that we had a connection and he sort of leaned over at one point and said hey man, can we skip the whole arrest and deportation thing. can you just drive us back to the border and let us cross back into mexico. can you be a brother. i didn't hesitate. i said no, this is my job, you know i can't do that. i took them in, but what i remember about that encounter is i remember asking their names and i remember introducing myself to them and

i remember wanting to remember them because i had this connection i wanted to hold them in my mind. i wanted that woman to be safe. i wanted their child to be safe. then a couple hours later, i went back out on patrol, i was getting my car and i had completely forgotten their names. the reason that encounter sticks with me so much is that i think that's the first step in the dehumanization, forgetting wha what makes someone an individual. >> sunday night 8:00 eastern on q&a. >> the senate intelligence committee held a hearing on the process for giving security clearances to government employees and contractors. witnesses from the government and private contracting companies testified about background checks. also the time it takes to assess whether someone qualifies for clearance.