in the course of this they will kill a number of slave holders. >> then sunday at 2:00 p.m. we visit the nra national sporting arms museum. >> he was a very very avid hunter. first thing he did was organize and go on a very large hunting safari to africa. this was prepared specifically for roosevelt. it has the seal engraved on the breach. of course roosevelt was famous for the bull-moose party.

it is engaraved on the side of this gun. >> sundays at 2:00 p.m. on cspan3 working as we explore america. >> coming up next, a look at the effectiveness against countries like iran and north korea. it's about 90 minutes. >> committee will come to order. all members will have five legislative days to submit materials for inclusion into the record. this is entitled evaluating the effectiveness of programs. i am pleased to welcome our

colleagues to the hearing on u.s. sanctions. from iran to north korea to russia and venezuela sanctions are used in our foreign policy tool kit. congress must ensure they be held accountable for result. it may provide context for this discussion. sap sanctions are key. they should be designed accordingly. that means calibrating sanctions relief based on achievable actions we wish to see from a foreign actor. tailoring sanctions is important for secondary sanctions given how banking restrictions have less predictable effects. they reported and the full house

overwe overwhelmingly passed a piece of legislation that i was proud to sponsor with the jept l lady from wisconsin. it would target every area of north korea's economy including any laborers abroad. this week's test launch that can reach any part of the united states urnderlines why it is essential. we should strike with as much strength as possible, provide the president with flexibility and link it to a narrow set of realisticobjectives.

it is devoting resources with no real impact on foreign policy on jekti objectives. we must guard against such half measures. we want to preserve the trust that the u.s. holds in the financial system. we must think about what it means to access to that system so that others understand the rational. the second point is the need for continue use engagement with congress when the executive chooses to wield powers.

what may be less well known is it lays out regular consultations and reports so that these thauthorities are exercised with appropriate oversight. it is to examine whether it is upholding the letter and spirit of these provisions. tfi has been the resip yecipien. it brings me to point number three, as our country becomes relier reliant it will be called upon to make its voice heard on the substance of that policy. we have seen the changes in the shift. the president signed into law

the act. in light of this trend we should expect congress will look more and more to the department to help shape their goals, scope and strategy and to answer for sapg sap sanctions shortcomings. its accountability will only grow with prominence in these debates. i look forward to working with them so that their programs are impactful. the chair now recognizes the ranking member gentle lady for five minutes for an opening statement. >> thank you so much. let me thank our againsts from the treasury department. i always look forward to hearing from the experts and, you know,

information is a powerful tool. just let me begin of course by thanking my chairman for calling this hearing. as he indicated before, i'm a part of the bipartisan work on the north korea sanctions, so prod proud to have worked on that. i believe we passed a strong bill. i hope the administration does the hard work of implementing this bill. with that said, i can't explain the commitment to implementing the programs. i can tell you, as an american there are many other people who join me in feeling we are

isolated and weak with even the british debating whether or not the president of the united states is welcoming england. this is stunning. my constituents are very concerned about the extent with human rights violators, a relationship that of course has the president and on many of his cabinet and advisers scandals relating to connections. i'm concerned with reports that the department of state eliminated the office of the coordinator for sapnctions policy. we did the hard work to draft this bill. i'm sure that our wpitnesses ar

aware that congress recreently passed further sanctions. it is amazing to me they would coordinate these policies. i think you can empathize with me. cutting out some people that could help you all. i'm sure you're also aware that the administration seems not to be implementing these russian sanctions. forgive me. i grew up in a time and era where as a public school student we were diveriing under our des we were so afraid of russia. i'm worried that the administration is more interested in implementing the goals of the kremlin to not have sanctions and statutory

mandates. i really am interested in hearing about the treasury's efforts to make sure it is ev y implementing things. i will apologize there advance for bowing out of the meeting some what early because i have a conflict of another meeting that is extremely important as well. i do look forward to hearing your testimony. i will be here to hear your testimony and answer some of these questions. thank you so much. i yield back. >> the gentle lady yields back. in this role he helped oversee the administration's efforts in administering economic sanctions globally. he served as managing director for business intelligence

services. he had previously held positions at the department of defense where he served as principal for low intensity conflict. he also worked as a staff member on the senate foreign relations committee. john smith is the director which is responsible to advance foreign policy goals. he served as the acting director. prior to joining, mr. smith served as an expert from 2004 to 2007. each of you will be recognized

for five minutes to give an oral presentation of your testimony. without objection each of your written statements will be part of the record. if you could pull your microphone closer to you that would be great. >> thank you for inviting me here today to talk about a number of matters that you have raised in your opening statements. the treasury department has in my view, pioneered the use of state craft. in the interest of time i'll skip to the bottom line up front which is that i believe there are several reasons sanctions are quite effective tools. i do actually agree with the way you laid out the overall context

of sapnctions. i will name numerous examples. i would like to provide four specific reasons or four specific matters which i think effect the effective ness. this has aggressively targeted the operational support around the world. it is facilitators and money services worldwide. designations along with close cooperation from authorities have we if he c have effectively shut down the financial facilitating networks. we continue to effort against al qaeda and other terrorist groups

through actions. as you plmay know there was the announcement of a multi-national terrorist targeting scepter that is housed in saudi arabia. seven nations imposed nations on weapons traffickers in yemen. it was one of the bilgest outside the united nations. we also argumented and you'll hear about how we included any revenue that is used to support the various weapons programs. we are determined to cut that

off. finally, sanctions were the dominant factor over the nuclear weapons program. we are committed to combatting iran's behavior around the globe. they have knowledged their donors are scared as a result of u.s. sanctions. i mentioned four specific reasons i think sanctions are effective. first is that we employee them against the backdrop of an international financial system that we are continue usely working to improve to create standards through the financial action task force, to cause the s

it has been a long-standing part of the environment. it is because of this backdrop of driving the creations of these regimes that we are able to cause our partner neighs ati embrace and enforce these measures. i would say a second reason sanctions are so effective is because of the financial deploem -- diplomacy that goes with it. it is almost always followed up with engagement by the treasury and state departments. i would say as a general proposition tapgss are most imply med unilaterally. but when and where possible duo

work with other nations to amplify our messes and drive concerted action. and we pursue it through a variety of nations such as the united nations but i also mentioned the tftc. i'm out of time but to summarize the final two reasons, the third reason is that we have to be co messages. how we approached venezuela is a good example. mr. chairman, you mentioned this. is the excuse, do you touch the financial part. there are times it is worth while. i appreciate the chance to

appear before the committee. >> thank you. mr. smith, you're recognized now for five minutes. >> thank you for inviting me here to discuss the important role of sanctions and addressing some of the most prominent things. my office is opposed to the actions such as north korea, iran and russia as well as other actors engaged in conduct to our nations ideals a. the regimes and actors rely on funding to operate and by freezing their assets, cutting them off from the u.s. financial

system and restricting the ability the choice to them becomes clear, either modify your behaivior. one of our highest priorities is targeting the north korea reseem. this year they have issued eight rou rounds adding 112 to our list, what we call the sdn list. it requires revenue to expand. just last week they sanctioned several chinese trading companies that were respopsable f

-- responsible to hundreds of millions of dollars. the action pressure and multilateral sanctions helped pressure china to announce it would halt all coal imports from north korea representing a blow to the regime's revenue. iran is another top priority and since january, ofac's issues eight traunchs of sanctions involving iran designating 78 targets around the globe in connection with the irgc and iran's ballistic missile program, support for terrorism, human rights abuses, cyberattacks, transnational criminal activity and other destabilizing regional activity. we recently designated the irgc under the global terrorism executive order pursuant to the countering america's adversaries through sanctions act.

the legislation that you mentioned. and just last week we sanctioned an irgc quds force counterfeiting network that deceived european suppliers to procure advanced equipment to print yemen bank notes potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars. another significant priority for ofac is addressing russia's destabilizing activities in ukraine. this summer we continued our regular pattern of sanctions and designated 38 individuals and entities involved in the ongoing conflict in ukraine and more recently we've been hard at work implementing requirements and publishing guidance related to the legislation passed by congress. i want to be clear and emphasize that treasury has fully implemented every requirement delegated to it within the statutory deadlines. we've also used our sanctions this year to address the erosion of democracy in venezuela, disrupt major narcotics traffickers in mexico, colombia,

peru and venezuela, increase pressure on the assad regime in syria, deny terrorist groups like isis and hezbollah the ability to access the u.s. financial system and shine a spotlight on various governments for serious human rights abuses. we have dedicated the bulk of our resources and attention on the issues most pressing to our nation's security. we greatly appreciate congress's partnership and continued efforts to ensure that ofac and tfi are equipped with adequate tools and authorities. however, i'll note that our existing powers are relatively broad and in order to achieve maximum impact we need flexibility in administering and enforcing our sanctions. additionally, the increase in congressional reporting requirements and statutes with no expiration dates ultimately draws resources away from our primary sanction activities. thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you today and i look forward to

continuing to work with you and your staff as we try to maximize the impact of our sanctions. >> thank you. the gentleman's time is expired and the chair now recognizes himself for five minutes for questioning. let me just first commend treasury and the trump administration for abandoning this policy of strategic patience that has led north korea to obtaining a nuclear arsenal including a hydrogen bomb and as we saw earlier this week an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the continental united states and a reentry vehicle for that missile. i would commend the treasury for its eight rounds of sanctions on north korea. however, i do want to read into the record an op ed that you probably saw this morning in the "the wall street journal" entitled maximum pressure on north korea, china and u.s. still haven't imposed tough sanctions. i'll just read and quote from the article. quote, the trump administration

has done more than its predecessors to thwart north korea's nuclear progress but it is still far from using maximum pressure. it may not work in the end but the alternatives are terrible. acquiescence or war. wednesday's icbm test shows kim is getting closer to his goal of threatening u.s. cities so why is the u.s. not using all the tools it has to stop him? so my question is this to both of you, in a hearing before the senate banking committee earlier this fall, treasury under secretary mandelkur stated that the u.n. pertaining to north korea represent quote the floor not the ceiling that's why under the house passed bill that we were referring to earlier the north korean sanctions bill that was bipartisan we go beyond those resolutions to target all oil exports to the dprk and all of its foreign labor. so the question is this. if the u.n. resolutions are truly just the floor for u.s. policy, what is treasury doing to eliminate the petroleum and

labor loopholes left by the resolutions, and why should congress tolerate the same incremental strategy that has gotten the kim regime where it is today. we'll start with you, mr. billingslea. >> thank you, mr. chairman. so obviously the u.n. sanctions regime is multi-nationally crafted and it requires the chinese and the russians to come along and we, in fact, reengaged in wake of the recent launch to drive again the need to further ratchet the pressure on north korea for its continuing behavior. i would say we have actively worked to dry up all of the different mechanisms by which the north korean regime obtains petroleum and other petroleum products regardless of the fact that the u.n. security council resolution, that they ultimately did not agree to the u.s. position to shut off all

crude oil imports they agreed to a reduction in crude and to a cessation of oil products. the number of things along these lines, back to my point about not everything is a sanction. there's a lot of other things the tfi does in the financial work that goes beyond the individual sanctions world. john will tell you about the specific sanctions we've engaged in to target the ways people were illicitly flowing petroleum into north korea. we've identified the latest evasion technique that the north koreans are using which involves north korea oil freighters pulling out in the middle of ocean and linking up to do a ship to ship transfer. we've exposed a number of these. we've gone after their flagging authorities with various nations to yank the flagging authority of vessels that are causing difficulties. we're further investigating the

network of shell and ownership structures that are created to hide the true ownership of these ships. on labor, we have been -- i personally have engaged with a large number of countries overseas particularly in the middle east to to secure agreement to expel north korean slave labor from these countries and to identify the companies that were being used to exploit these people. those are just two examples -- >> if i could just jump in there, you did mention in the testimony about the designation of the four chinese trading companies that have conducted business and the designations there. i'm sure you're familiar with the recent report that indicated that there are over 5,000 such companies in china and we just want to know how treasury can make a dent in these chinese firms if you're focusing on individual designations as opposed to the secondary sanctions on these middleman front companies. >> the challenge we have is when we see these press reports and these 5,000 here, 3,000 there,

the challenge is that we need -- we have to meet evidentiary standard for the measures that we take, legal standards, so we do need much more granular information so that john can take his actions. so i -- you know, when we get these leads we follow them up aggressively. >> my time has expired. as my questioning points out, and as our recently passed house bill makes clear we believe there is a need for treasury to exhaust all options available especially in light of this most recent ballistic missile test. at this time i'd like to recognize the ranking member for five minutes of questioning. >> thank you so much, mr. chairman. thank you again. one of the most horrific acts occurring anywhere on the planet earth at this point is the ethnic cleansing that's occurring in the rohingya people who fled to bangladesh since late august and i was wondering is there any program under the global

magnitsky act that targets the senior most members of these burmese security forces who likely ordered these rapes and murders and acts of arson? have you identified any of these folks and when do we expect to see sanctions announced against burma? >> thank you, ranking member. i'm glad you mentioned the global magnitsky act. we appreciate congress giving us the authority to target human rights abusers and corrupt actors worldwide. as you mentioned this authority gives us the authority to target those that are responsible for such activity, serious human rights abuses, no matter where they occur. congress has given a mandate in that legislation asking us to report at certain periods and take action at certain periods. the next period comes up in december and i think the treasury department is working to make sure that we implement this statute fully. so it is something --

>> have you identified any people in burma? >> we have not under global. it's authority that has just been delegated to us. >> thank you for that. i was arrested hanging out with john lees which, i warned some of the freshman about him, for protesting at the sudanese embassy for crimes that have been committed in sudan and the president still remains under indictment. the international criminal court for war crimes, including genocide. we imposed sanctions for human rights violations and yet we have relaxed them under this administration. what did i miss? >> well, we actually removed them. >> exactly. removed them. why? >> we removed them, by the way, on the basis of criteria established by president obama. so he, president obama, established five specific

criteria against which the sudanese would be held accountable. >> thank you. my time is waning. i'm going to continue on this theme of sanctions and human rights because i'm confused by what the policy of the administration is. we have seen him -- the following obama's agenda. he is reimposing sanctions and strictures against cuba. he has decided that venezuela has become enemy number one because of the government's role in undermining democratic processes and institutions and yet we see that he -- he shows a fondness for totalitarian strong men around the globe including the philippine president duterte praising the authoritarian

leader of egypt who had his political opponents gunned down and jailed dissidents, and the president thinks they've done a fantastic job in a very difficult situation and of course defended president putin against accusations that he's murdered journalists and dissidents. so i'm wondering it seems to be such a checkerboard approach to sanctions? can you help me sort of sort this out? what i want to ask you mr. smith, is sometimes you can give waivers for -- i want to know if there are any waivers that we don't know about. you can do it without coming to congress for reducing or relinquishing waivers against russia. >> thank you for the questions. with respect to the human rights

related designations, we've continued to actively target over the past year human rights concern in north korea, iran, south sued an -- sudan and other programs. we have continued our focus on human rights concerned. in terms of waivers with respect to russia -- >> go on. >> with respect to russia i think most of the waivers that might exist in statutory programs have been delegated to the state department under the various authorities. ofac can issue particular licenses and under the -- >> i have two seconds left. very quickly. my time is expired. >> the gentlelady's time is expired. the vice chair of the subcommittee and author of the strengthening oversight of iran's access to finance act, the gentleman from texas, mr. williams. >> thank you, chairman barr, on your important work. most importantly the house-passed increase on

sanctions. given the overwhelmingly increased aggression under the kim regime this legislation cannot be timelier. i would like to recognize our experts. i thank them for joining us this afternoon. i appreciate your time and i appreciate your expert testimony. america and some of her most important allies such as israel under the constant threat by those that wish to harm us and the work that both of you do in the sanction field has to keep the bad actors away. appreciate that. though there are areas that we can improve in dealing with the world's foremost state sponsored terrorism in iran. after eight years of flawed policy culminating with a terrible jcpoa i'm encouraged by the president's direction. so assistant secretary billingslea, thank you for being here and iran continues to be extremely concerning to me and those i represent. we must do all we can to ensure that appropriate sanctions are enacted. to that end i recently sponsored as you heard strengthening

oversight of iran's access finance act which was reported favorably out of this committee and just yesterday was introduced by senator cruz and perdue in the senate. my legislation will increase congressional oversights of aircraft sales to iran. and their affect on financial institutions. so mr. secretary, what similar steps can be taken to further prevent the abuse of the financial system by iran in a way that promotes terrorism, human rights abuses or assistance to the assad regime? >> thank you, vice chairman. as you said iran is the foremost sponsor of terrorism around the world and they have used their nowfound access to financial resources to further support terrorism and foment instability across the middle east and globally. the iranian quds force in particular is heavy engaged in destabilization in syria, in iraq. they are moving money to

hezbollah, to hamas and other terrorist organizations and obviously their role in yemen in the civil war there in supporting the hutis is incredible in the civil war there. much more needs to be done to constrain iran's ability to obtain and move finances to terrorist organizations and that's why congressional action under catsa with regard to the iranian guard core, as the parent organization of the quds force, is a major entity or set of entities interwoven throughout the iranian economy. one of the things we've been cautioning our european allies and others is to be very careful as you look at doing business with iran, because we have sanctioned the irgc, the europeans have as well and we expect that extreme caution should be exercised before entertaining any type of business in that country. particularly when they have no safeguards and no antilaundering

regime to speak of, but when they're engaged in the kind of outrageous counterfeiting behaviors which fly against the norm of the financial services sector. >> thank you. i'd like to further discuss the tools that the treasury is utilizing in its fight against iran's destabilizing financial activity. in august, congress passed any sanctions legislation given the trump administration new tools for the fight against iranian's missile program. terrorist assistance and human rights abuses. i firmly believe that iran will continue to develop new ways to work around u.s. and international sanctions to continue their campaign of terror across the globe. another question i have is how do we maintain pressure on iran's leadership and financial institutions insuring that the irgc and related financial entities do not create loopholes to avoid these sanctions? >> quickly, in two ways. i'll talk with one and director smith with the other. with regard to pressure on the regime, one of the things that

they have to do is they have to create a legal framework and be held accountable for stopping the financing of terrorism. they do not have sufficient laws in iran. i don't know that they would honor those laws even if they had them, but they don't have the regime in plagues. and we ought to insist that until they do have antimoney laundering set of laws being enforced, sanctions should be imposed on their financial sector. >> we also need to keep doing what we're doing and ramping up pressure exposing the bad activity where we see it across the board and exposing it wherever we see it around the world no matter what country, no matter what type of company and we're exposing the different types including the counterfeiting ring that i mentioned earlier. >> i yield my time back, thank you. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from north carolina mr. pittenger for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you gentleman for being with us today. appreciate your commitment. director smith, i would say to you as well, mr. secretary,

would you please discuss with us the tools that you believe are effective at your disposal that will allow us to address export controls? i'd like you to discuss sifius as well and what modification should be made if any to that and the relevance of that committee and particularly as we deal with nations who have supported our adversaries and also seek to acquire assets in their own country? so if you could respond to that i'll be grateful. >> thank you so much for the question. i think it's very helpful and been a very helpful to have the interests from congress to making sure we have the appropriate tools. when you ask about the appropriate tools that we can use, i think the power that congress has given us and the oversight that congress plays has been a very important role in our

success in being able to go after these types of activities. the fact that we have the authority to call out these activities, freeze their assets, prohibit u.s. persons wherever they may be from engaging in this type of behavior and congress nudging us to add an additional designations or sanctions for example, with respect to the irgc where we designated it before but we added to it under the terrorism authorities and all its agents, affiliates and officials worldwide. that's been a very helpful power for us to have. i think i'll yield to my colleague marshall on the cfius questions. ofac plays a role in terms of reviewing some of those but it's not my expertise. >> thank you. >> congressman, the issue i have is that the administration of the sieve i couldn't say cfius process belongs to a different part of the treasury i'm hesitant to kind of opine when i think they would give you a

better answer but i'll arrange that discussion. >> i thought maybe you might have a perspective of it just from -- >> i do in the sense that we -- that we need to ensure that our -- that the critical pieces of our economy are safeguarded from adversarial acquisition or influence. >> do you feel they're vulnerable today? >> i do feel they're vulnerable today. >> do you feel that the expansion of the oversight of cfius is warranted today? >> not sure i understand what's implied by that -- >> greater capability for oversight. >> greater capability of investigation from understanding the origin of funds, the structure of acquiring entities to make sure we truly understand who is behind acquisition of different companies. >> joint ventures and the like. >> yes, sir. absolutely. >> very good. mr. secretary, another point, what's the typical evidentiary standard that's needed to designate a foreign entity for

violating the u.s. sanctions? and as well, when dealing with the support of terrorism proliferators, what should that standard be? >> i'm going to defer to director smith on the evidentiary standard because he's got a team of lawyers and counsel that help him on that but it does tend to vary. >> thank you. >> the standard is the basic administrative standard that's used across the federal government. it's the reasonable cause to believe. it's a relatively low standard in terms of when you think of the overall standards of proof of beyond the reasonable doubt in the criminal context or even a preponderance of evidence that says more likely than not, ours is just a reasonable cause to believe. it's basically are we reasonable in believing that and that is the standard that we use in our designations programs as well as our enforcement of sanctions violations. >> given the actions of various countries like qatar in the

past, and knowing we have an mou with qatar at this time, obviously there have been concerns relative to ransoms for kidnappings and safe harbors and -- for hamas and al jazeera and other concerns, do you believe sanctions were warranted on qatar or other countries that have been predisposed to be supportive of our adversaries? >> congressman, that's a great question. i didn't have time to get into it but an entire paragraph in my testimony talks about all the non-sanctions, dimensions to financial diplomacy and one of the things i emphasized was the importance, when sanctions is a tool available to us it is a threat that's lying there on the table that we can use to great effect with various third parties. one of my very first trips in my capacity when i was confirmed by the senate was to qatar. i will tell you that we do have issues with qatar on the

terrorism front. we have issues actually with many countries in the gulf on various terrorism issues. it differs country by country. the qatari did very, very recently engage in a series of arrests of very senior al qaeda financiers and were -- we view that as crucial and we're watching the prosecution process that is now unfolding very, very closely. >> good. they to date have not prosecuted anybody till now. >> the gentleman's time is expired. the chair recognizes the gentleman from arkansas mr. hill. >> thank the chairman. appreciate you holding this hearing that we've done so consistently now over the last few weeks to assess how america's doing on our sanction regime for some of the world's most rogue nations and sure appreciate our witnesses' service to our country and tackling these tough issues, because we're not going to be successful in countering

illicit finance or terrorism without every asset at our disposal, diplomatic, military and financial, economic. so thank you for leading the economic cause. i want to talk a minute since we've talked a little about north korea. let's talk some more about russia. i was particularly pleased secretary tillerson appointed ambassador volker as our special envoy regarding trying to break the frozen conflict around minsk. i think this was something missing from the previous administration. america really partnered in the eu and heading in a different direction and i was intrigued by your comments and your testimony talking about russia's obviously destabilizing actions in the ukraine but in addition to that it continues to meddle in eastern europe generally through cyberattacks, incursions, disinformation

campaigns and even evidence that they interfered in montenegro's elections last october. it's for this reason back in june that mr. swayze of new york and i introduced the fighting russian cooperation act, hr 2820 and one thing i'd like you to do today is if you could take a look at your legislation and give me your thoughts about it officially from the treasury. it sets up an anticorruption office over at state as a political matter to work particularly in the eu with our european partners about taking our knowledge, our capabilities that we have both in cyber, illicit finance and partnering with them to counter russian political meddling and i think it would be important because you do so much work in the technical assistance area where treasury would help train our u.s. diplomatic efforts in that regard and make it part of our nato effort as well.

we suggest that anticorruption become part of nato's readiness plan. so if you would take a look, we have 12 republicans and four democrats and i appreciate the work with mr. swayze on that. so given this political interference that you've established both in the ukraine and in montenegro and other balkan countries, what is treasury prepared to do to -- to punish and deter activities like this under your existing authorities you have? >> congressman, you have highlighted a number of worrisome activities by the russians. i would also add to that list actually the money laundering behaviors that we've seen them engaging in some of the baltic nations as well as cyprus and other places which are

fundamentally -- when you talk about corruption, there's such a corrosive behavior that strikes at the heart of the financial integrity of these countries and so it is -- it is crucial in particular that we go after russian organized crime. we've done a number of actions together with the secret service and others in combatting russia organized crime and russia organized crime tracks right back to parts of the regime in various ways particularly when you start talking cyber matters, so i think you're pointing in the direction that we have to go which is to focus on that corruption. >> i hope that maybe we can have a roundtable or classified briefing on that matter and just -- we spend a lot of time as we should on north korea but i think it would be useful to learn more here. in the time i have remaining, i know that congress asks finsin and your offices for reporting, a lot of reporting and i think that's important. our oversight responsibility is critical here and you have that

both to foreign affairs and some aspects and here at the financial services committee. what are we -- are these requirements becoming too burdensome, how can we consolidate our request to get the information we want to have for oversight. but -- i know it seems like every measure we introduce has a treasury reporting obligation. could you reflect on that? >> congressman, we're beyond -- we're beyond reasonable here. the reporting burden from north of 80, 90 different reports, some that date back 20 years it's crushing. it's absolutely crushing on us. in your opening comments you talked about how we needed to bring every asset to bear and i will tell you that within the very small structure of tfi we're talking 700 people total of which half are focused on banking oversight, so when you talk about john's shop, my shop, the under secretary's organization, we are consumed by reports and as a former senate

staffer, i can't tell you that i know all of these reports are even being read. >> thank you, sir. and thank you, mr. chairman, for the time and i hope we're more sensitive about our regulatory reporting burden on these important actors. thank you. >> the chair recognizes the gentleman from west virginia mr. mooney. >> my questions for secretary billingslea, you mention on page three of your testimony that some circumstances providing financial intelligence to a trusted foreign partner is all it takes to shutter terrorist exchange houses or freeze a bank account. i want to go back a step further because we have to get that intelligence from somebody first before we can share it to somebody. somebody has to give it to us. we have to find it. the discussion today as revolved around the way the u.s. sanctions rogue nations and others that pose a threat to our people and our economic and financial systems and with the conflicts around the globe we have partners who want to aid the united states in these fights, give us information, some are countries but some are

individuals or groups that wish to aid us, give us information on the certain activities of the funding of terrorist organizations. so my question to you is, would it be helpful to our cause in general to get this information if your office could reward those individuals or groups that step forward with helpful information about where our adversaries are keeping their finances and if so, what incentives could be used? to encourage such assistance? >> congressman, i'd like to talk with you more about that and understand, but at first blush, i think that is exactly the kind of innovative insightful support that through legislation congress could help us in the missions that we are have to undertake. you're spot on in terms of the challenges we face and the informational gaps we often have particularly when it comes down to that last tactical mile of getting to the adversaries bank account so the idea of a rewards program. i can tell you from my time in

running the special operations and low intensity conflict office for secretary rumsfeld, we used reward authorities to great effect, to elicit information and we used information and paid rewards, for instance, leading to the identification of where saddam hussein's two sons were and we deployed special forces, and that was highly effective. in line with your idea, i'd like to explore that with you further. congressman, you're on to something there. >> i'd like to talk to you further about that too. i have more time left. changing questions, more specifically on a country, the imf estimates that in 2016 the venezuelan economy contracted by 18% and saw inflation of over 250% with the further contraction of 12% in 2017 and inflation of 650%. so our understanding is that the executive order the president issued in august which restricted dealings in venezuela

debt has further affected bond liquidity and added to pressure on president maduro. which i think is a great idea. president maduro, he's like a sweaty rhino running out of control around that area. given the regime's resilience up to this point, can you articulate what the end game of venezuela sanctions is? the government currently hasn't been moderating. so what outcome are you aiming for and how appropriate are existing sanctions to achieving it? >> venezuela is in a -- the economy's in a death spiral due to the kleptocratic policies of the maduro regime as they have engaged in wholesale looting of that country, of the state oil enterprise and the ensuing humanitarian crisis that is erupting around us and this is a major national security issue on top of a humanitarian in the -- humanitarian disaster in the making. it affects key allies like the

colombians next door. i'm very concerned about looks like we're on the verge of an epidemic now. maduro is blocking humanitarian assistance coming from outside. he's preventing and through his own economic mismanagement they don't have the resources to buy the anti-malarials in particular. the president has made extremely clear, we will not participate in the looting of that country's economy. sanctions have been imposed on any new debt or equity and those sanctions will be removed if there's a return to normal democratic process in that country. >> my mother fled a communist country, cuba. america could have stopped that and didn't and now we have really bad actors trying to impose evil regimes on folks that don't care about human life and stealing and it's terrible. so i would like to encourage you to keep that up and anything we can do to help, i would sure appreciate. with that, i'll yield back the balance of my time. >> the chairman recognizes the gentleman from california, mr. sherman.

>> does the venezuelan government own major assets in the united states? they used to own the citgo gas stations. >> congressman, yes, citgo is a wholly owned subsidiary. >> so how come we haven't seized those assets for the benefit of the venezuelan people? as long as they remain under the control of ma durimaduro, they'g to be looted. we could seize them, sell them put the money in trust for the venezuelan people. are you just going to let maduro run the company into the ground, loot it and abscond with the money? >> congressman, excellent question. >> if you need any legislation, why haven't you submitted it? i bet you we could pass it. >> thank you, sir. to your point we've, in fact, specifically moved to prevent maduro from being able to access any funds from citgo. the treasury department, and working with the white house, when the new executive order was issued a specific provision was

issued, a specific provision was included -- >> could he sell the company and keep the money. >> can they just sell all the stock? could exxon buy the stock tomorrow? don't tell me about antitrust law. could amazon buy the stock tomorrow? >> the citgo ownership structure i'd have to get back to you on. >> if you don't want -- if you don't want to be here after the barn doors close, if he can sell the entire company tomorrow and i don't think you need cfius to deinvest in the united states, so anyway, just more work for you when you get back. speaking of more work, obviously we require a lot of reports but that's because if we don't require reports we pass laws and nothing happens. as to north korea, the strategy of this administration is to go after individual chinese companies. that may raise the cost of doing business for north korea a bit but if the top 25 chinese

companies in an industry refuse to do business with north korea the 26th biggest may not care about doing business with the united states and they may decide to pick up the north korean business instead. the only way you're going to accomplish anything is if you at least threaten to sanction the whole country. it's got to be something that hits the government in beijing not just the pocketbook of a few large companies because it is not a successful sanction if you force somebody to pay a higher atm fee because the banks with the lower atm fees won't do business with them. the goal here is not to annoy pyongyang, it's not to destroy pyongyang but it is to put them in a position where they feel their economy might be destroyed. let's turn to iran. mahan air is designated as a terrorist enemy,

given its support for the assad regime and hits support of terrorism. yet every day mahan air lands at airports in europe and every day the flag airline from that company flies from that big airport to the united states. why are we allowing european air carriers to start their flight in an mahan infested airport and come to the united states? why are we not going after the airports or -- are we serious about mahan air? you have an answer? >> it's a great question, congressman. we are -- we are very serious about it. it is the aviation arm of the quds force. it is what they use to traffic weapons, terrorists. >> so why are we still doing business with airports that accommodate them? why are american planes still buying fuel from the same companies that sell fuel to them

at european airports? >> two points on that, one is that we have been in a departure from the previous administration's approach we have been incredibly aggressive. >> setting a rather low bar for yourself. but go on. >> at least we clear the bar, right? you make a good point and i think it would be very prudent for any company that transacts with mahan air to be exceptionally cautious going forward. >> i don't think they should be cautious, i think they should nail them then they'll know. let's talk about the irgc. there are about 800 irgc companies that have yet to be sanctioned. you've sanctioned about 80. you've got sanctions on individual planes, i'm not counting those. likewise, only a handful of companies and individuals that have done business or provided significance have suffered sectionary sanctions. is your standard of proof too high? is your staffing too low?

and how many farsi speaking individuals do you have working full time on this? >> so congressman, i would say answering a few of your questions there quickly. on mahan air, we have actually done some designations in the last few months against european airlines, ukrainian airlines that had been servicing mahan air and we actually took action. we're looking for -- >> is that a -- is there a flight that's been canceled as a result of that? >> there have been some routes that have been stopped over the proceeding previous months because of mahan air because of the u.s. government's outreach. on the questions you asked on making sure standard of proof. it's the reasonable belief standard that we have. it's not too high. it's something that we can live with but in terms of what we're trying to do with irgc and other targets, we're trying to hit the maximum impact one.

we're not trying to give you a numbers game -- >> how many farsi speakers working full time. >> i can get back to you. >> time is expired and we may have an opportunity for a second round. time with the gentleman is expired. we may have a chance for the second round. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from indiana, mr. hollingsworth. >> hoosiers in the ninth district feel unsafe with some of the things we see around the world, and i know you and your teams are working every day to make sure the world is safer for americans at home and abroad. i want to spin the globe back to venezuela for a moment. mr. billingslea, you had mentioned that there's a restriction on new debt with regard to venezuela. i certainly understand that. i know also that that restriction is fairly broad and the summary of new debt as provided by ofac is somewhat difficult to parse through and better understand with regard to russia specifically. i think there were a number of frequently asked questions that were also posted to help people parse through what is new debt

versus existing, et cetera. i wanted to find out whether there's any possibility or whether there's an expectation that more clarity will be provided around the new debt definition for venezuela specifically and that can go to either of you, frankly. >> thank you for the question. we have been responding and we published additional faqs with respect to many of these questions with respect to venezuela. in fact, we did put something out with respect to what the meaning of debt as well. we can refer those faqs to you or your constituents. we're getting a lot of calls on this and we're trying to be responsive. >> fantastic. and i think as mr. sherman and others have mentioned, some clarity around understanding what transactions are permissible with regard to citgo as well. i've had some constituent companies that are concerned. and don't want to be unnecessarily or unintentionally caught up in something that's larger than they are. so i appreciate that as well. >> if you can have your constituents reach out us to we

have the compliance hotline that operates as well as the licensing division. we're taking a lot of calls on this in trying to make sure we get the clarity out there. >> fantastic. i know that my constituents back home and the companies that they own, operate or manage want to do the right thing, understand as you well said the humanitarian crisis as well as the national security crisis this presents but they want to do the right thing and understand where they are with regard to the law. following up on venezuela further, i know that one of the things that economists have talked about is just the need to restructure the debt in venezuela and with the new restrictions in place, that can't happen or may happen only in some sort of gray zone of understanding. is it your understanding that we are going to require the maduro organization, administration, government itself to change or is there any capacity in which those officials themselves can get into compliance such that there can be a restructuring of the debt by imf or other

external resources? >> so, you know, on the imf question, this is a country, this is a regime that has failed to publicize any of the standard data that are expected by properly functioning economies. on top of that you're dealing with a regime where maduro and his cronies, his vice president is a drug kingpin and he put him in charge of the debt discussions. it's a designated individual. on top of that, this is a country where its constitution specifies that the national assembly is the only organization that can authorize the issuance of new debt but what will maduro did is wiped out democracy. he overturned the national assembly. these people have run for their lives. he's now established this

constituent assembly which is packed full of his people. >> this is understandable to say, the regime needs to change, period, in order for us to accomplish that. >> i don't think we're saying that. i think we're saying we need a return to the democratic order. >> got it. understood. and then is there any feeling what the time frame or timeline might occur? do you see any sort of weakening in resistance by the administration, the administration's cronies, et cetera or has it been as obdurate as was proven in the past? >> to the extent that the regime is enriching itself at the expense of the venezuelan people, and the theft of the oil company, it's clear that the gravy train has come to an end. they're out of money. presumably at some point people are going to look around and say, wow, the united states has designated me, the canadians have designated me, the european union is starting to designate officials above me.

maybe it's time to look at doing something different. >> i hope that comes soon and in my closing i wanted to thank you both for the efforts that you under take every single day. i yield back, mr. chairman. >> the gentleman's time is expired and there's been an interest in a second round of questioning of our witnesses our willing to take that responsibility on. we appreciate your testimony today and again appreciate your service in the interest of our national security and using every economic lever we can to deter our adversaries and i do want to follow-up on some of the questions regarding russia as we discussed earlier. i had an opportunity earlier this year to travel to eastern europe and visit with some of our nato allies. we went to germany and poland, lithuania, estonia, montenegro, the newest member of nato, and i can tell you that our allies and the foreign leaders in these countries were very consistent in the message

that they deliver to us and that message was that in addition to russia's illicit annexation of crimea and the frozen conflict in ukraine that there is a whole range of malign activities that the russians are engaged in to destabilize our nato allies from disinformation campaigns, to incursions into the baltic with their air force. the amended coup in montenegro, that was a major topic of conversation and concern. the cyber attacks. the militarization of kaliningrad. it's been four months since the enactment of the counter american sanctions act which was the sanctions legislation on russia and i want to just ask you all, what has treasury specifically done in

implementing that sanctions legislation and secondly, what has been the response, what has been the response of the russians to that and what, if any, behavioral change have we seen from the russians and i've probably given you too much to answer right there so i'll go ahead and leave both of you to consider both of those issues. >> i can start out and say we've been very busy implementing the requirements of catsa and we're doing it on time per the legislation. just about every 30 days. starting at day 60, congress and that statute require that we do some kind of implementation with the act with respect to russia as well as the other parts so on day 60 we started modifying our directives that were put out under the programs to tighten the restrictions in there. we have done that at day 60

and we've done that at day 90. we did additional modifications to continue tightening and make sure that we also explain that to industry and to the rest of the world so they know what they are and are not allowed to do. >> what has been the russia response to this? >> the russians haven't been happy as you can imagine. they were concerned with the legislation. i think they probably aired that publicly with you all at the time. i think we've heard that as well. i haven't had any conversations directly with the russians myself. >> have you seen major behavioral change? the disinformation campaigns, the destabilization efforts, the russian aggression continues, is that correct? >> i think the russian aggression has continued. in many of the respects that congress -- >> so that brings to mind the question of how we can make sanctions more effective and better changing behavior and deterring russian aggression and i want to focus on energy, the russian energy sector. many of our nato allies have expressed interest in the united states helping eastern europe

achieve energy independence certainly independence from russian gas and so i want -- and also in the case of lithuania, the astrobetz nuclear facility that's being constructed about 30 miles from vilnius. so the question is should we consider sanctioning and getting more aggressive on the nordstream 2 project, other energy projects that the russians are endeavoring to interfere with nato and get nato countries dependent and reliant on russian energy? >> i think you probably heard, i know you all heard up in congress as well as the administration on the views of european partners and allies with respect to energy independence. i think in the catsa

legislation, congress did impose additional restrictions, additional tightening of the sanctions with respect to many of those features and my understanding is that congress engaged with the european partners as well as did the administration. and so from my perspective i think we're still hearing from europe as we implement those sanctions. i'm not sure that there's anything that i've seen that we -- is needed at this time. >> i can tell you that if the russians do not respond to what we've done so far, we ought to send a message to the russians that if they continue their aggressive behavior, their energy -- their energy exports to our nato allies should be in the cross hairs of our sanctions regime and that's the view of one member of congress but i'd say that there are other members of congress who feel the same wail way as well and with that my time is expired and so i'll now recognize for a second round of questioning the gentleman from california mr. sherman. >> okay. i'd like to go back first to venezuela. i hope that --

do i understand you'll be going back to your office to make sure that venezuela can't just sell citgo and take the money back to caracas? do i have that right? >> it's actually prohibited under law. >> so they can't -- neither the dividends. >> the dividends are not -- right. >> but what they can of course do is overpay for oil? one way to dividend if you have the retailer is just have them pay $70 a barrel for the oil that comes out of venezuela and when the world prices closer to 50, are we monitoring that? >> i will verify but -- >> please answer for the record. >> yes, sir. >> but you're saying they can't sell the stock of citgo nor can they pay a dividend? >> they cannot pay the dividends under the executive order. a wholesale sale of citgo would likely trigger a number of things. >> what would it trigger? if they were going to buy a major american company that

would trigger cfius. but i don't know what it would trigger -- and whether they sell or they could just sell some of the stock. so please answer for the record but more promptly than we usually get questions for the record, what are we doing to make sure that citgo is not overpaying its venezuelan affiliate for either refined or nonrefined petroleum products, but second, what are we doing to prevent them from selling some or a majority of or all of the stock? now, as to mahan air, it seems like ukraine was low flying fruit because it just so happens the ukrainian airline is also in the airline servicing business, united doesn't refuel american airlines flights but in some airports the airline is also -- but it's not just sanctioning in that circumstance. mahan air is flying into milan and munich.

are we going to continue to allow american planes to fly into milan and munich, and are we going to continue to allow foreign planes to fly from milan and munich into the united states? >> i can't talk about what we would do in the future but what i can tell you -- >> why haven't we done it already in the past? this is mahan air. why should flights -- why should american towns be connected by direct routes into airports that are servicing mahan air? >> the treasury department -- >> we try to prevent american airplane travelers from coming close to terrorists, you're flying in and the terrorist airline's already on the ground. excuse me. please continue. the european -- >> this is just to remind that everyone in the audience this is not an open forum for

conversation and we will enforce that rule. and the witness may answer the question. >> we've been engaging extensively with our european partners that do not have mahan air on their sanctions list. we've been trying to provide them the information they need to have and at the same time enforcing and implementing the most major impactful sanctions designations. >> i'll ask you to answer for the record why we should allow americans to fly in and out of airports when as they land there's the terrorist right there. sounds pretty dangerous. and i'll go back to the question of staffing. do you have enough staff to do your job, gentlemen? >> congressman, that's always a challenging question. the formalistic view is that i would need to coordinate with omb and we're putting the budget request forward. the practical reality is that when you look at the use of treasury authorities, we are --

we are burning hot. in fact i think we just submitted to the finance committee our -- the survey that's taken of our employees and if you parse through the survey data, what you see is that our people -- maintaining a work/life balance for our people is something we're keeping a close eye on. >> your people are working enough that their spouses are complaining? sounds like we should get you more people. >> i would say the taxpayers are getting their money's worth. >> and i'm told that between the two of you you have maybe two farsi speaking individuals. can either of you be confident that between -- between the two of you, you have more than two that are working on iran and that actually speak farsi? you can't tell me you got five or six that you happen to know of or anything like -- >> i can go back and ask, we

can make a list. we do have farsi speaking individuals. when we find a language talent that we need -- >> i have people in my district, native farsi speakers. let me know. >> chairman, i'm always on the lookout for great resumes. >> the gentleman's time has expired. the chair recognizes the vice chairman of the subcommittee, mr. williams. >> secretary billingslea, the obama administration authorized financing the aircraft for the world's foremost jurisdiction of primary money laundering concerns. this allows or costs to be used for a state-owned airline, iran air, that was sanctioned in 2011 for providing support to the islamic revolutionary guard corps. we learned that iranian air flew at least 114 flights between iran and syria between the

jpcoa's implementation day and march 2017 likely as an airlift in support of the syrian government's atrocities. so this is an easy question, a simple yes or no. can you certify for us today that iran air has ceased all sanctionable activities? >> i need to get back to you on that, chairman -- or congressman. >> if you would. >> vice chairman. yes, sir. >> which financial institutions if any have contacted treasury with respect to aircraft finance for iran? >> i'm not sure of the answer to that. i'm not aware that any have. but we can get back to you. >> would you please. thirdly, can you assure us that a u.s. bank or a foreign bank with a u.s. nexus would not be exposed to any significant illicit finance risk if it did business with iran air? >> i'm not sure of the question. if you're saying can we assure you that if a u.s. bank engaged

in this transaction, in any transaction that was licensed, they would be part of a transaction that we authorized. but where the money goes to in iran, i can't assure you or give you any guarantee of where that goes. >> okay. do you agree that congress has a right to know whether aircraft financed for iran may benefit persons that engaged in sanctionable activities, including support for terrorism and human rights abuses? >> absolutely. absolutely you should know that. and we commit to engage with you at any point that you want to have the discussion. >> i think we have two questions, if you can get back to us on that. now, another question. as part of the omnibus package that was passed, entities that were delisted under the jcpoa

and whether such individuals have engaged in sanctionable activity under the jpcoa. we have not got that result yet. if you could help us there. what is the status of that report and do you feel that any entities that had their sanctions listened under the jcpoas have engaged in activity since the deal was enforced. >> we continue to work on those reports. as we said, we have about 90 a year we're working on. most we get in time. some more difficult because they are time consuming. if we see sanctionable activity, sanctionable conduct, we act against it. >> okay. mr. chairman, i yield my time back. >> gentleman yields back. chair recognizes the gentleman from michigan, investment and subcommittee. >> thank you, mr. chairman. appreciate your testimony today. good to see you again. a couple of quick questions. one i want to touch on china and i want to talk about north korea. in 2005 u.s. designated dealt asia as financial institution

of, quote, primary money laundering concern. treasury department did the same thing with bang of dandong. these banks are relatively small institutions. are there larger foreign financial institutions that treasury is going after. >> thanks for the question, congressman. we as a matter of practice don't tip our hand in our hand in advance. >> i don't want to know names. there are certainly bigger physician to fry. i'm looking for some reassurance treasury is looking at this and looking to pursue that. >> i think the best reinsurance i can give you, it's out electric, we put out an advisory to all of our financial institutions from fincen delineated, showed what the bank of dandong was engaged in and highlighted other areas where our banks needter lwara and

pointed them right at a particular part of china adjacent to north korea where we urge our banks to be vigilant. you can interpret directly from that we have a lot of concerns and we continue to investigate. >> mr. chairman, we had a great classified briefing yesterday. maybe this would be an issue, if need be we need to go into classified bipartisan briefing, we might want to look at doing that. quickly, july 13th "washington post," high-level north korean defector part of routinely evading sanctions noted how when north korean firms are on the black list, he said, quote, north korea is 100% state enterprise. these companies just change their names the day after they are sanctioned. that way the company continues but with a different name -- with a different name than the one on the sanctions list, end

quote. without objection i'd like to enter that into the record as well. so i assume without objection i'd like to enter the article into the record. >> so ordered. >> thank you. we've also seen north korean entities designated by treasury. is there more energy being devoted to enablers in china or southeast arab and elsewhere rather than just play wha whac-a-mole with entities. >> the key is not to play whac-a-mo whac-a-mole. the key is map them out and take them down simultaneously employing not just sanctions but working with law enforcement community, partner nations and their communities, intelligence community and so on, diplomatic endeavors. otherwise you're treating symptoms of the problem, not the root cause. >> treating those symptoms, i wholeheartedly agree.

just this one stunned me. there's media reports that there's a proposal circulating within the u.n. security council that would have frozen north korean leaders assets. and i said to myself, i didn't know there wasn't an asset that wasn't frozen already. if it hasn't been frozen, why not? this the sixth missile launch test they have done. if we haven't gotten to everybody, significant korean, north korean leaders assets internationally, which reports are they are significants we know that they have no problem starving their own people for advancement of the weapons as well as their own grandizement, you know, what is treasury doing? is treasury going after those

banks that hold those assets as well? >> we are. >> okay. i had look forward maybe we can unpack this a bit more in a slightly different setting, but i think this is a significant, significant issue. this is one of the few tools we know has worked in the past and we need to continue to implement that. with that, mr. chairman, i yield back. >> gentleman yields back. chair recognizes the gentleman from virginia for five minutes. >> thank you. continue right along on the north korea line of questioning. i think my first question is about relating to office of foreign assets control. direct this first one to mr. smith. on september 26th. ofac announced it was designating eight north korean financial institutions along with 26 representatives of north korea banks abroad. how is it as of september of 2017 there was still any north korean banks that remained

unsanctioned and how many more have not been designated. >> when we identify a bank and used specific terminology, we had designated them, but the state owned banks that had already been designated, their assets would have been frozen in the united states because they were the government of north korea. we used the term identified those banks and we sanctioned additional representatives around the world and added them to our list. it was very important for us because our sdn list was also around the world. so they get a hit, even if it's not in the united states. >> so you got it covered then, they have all been designated one way or another for sanctions? >> what's the impact of blocking

a bank in the united states, how would they have access to them under existing u.s. trade restrictions? >> the impact of sanctions can be different depending on the entity that's sanctioned. a north korean bank would not have had assets in the united states. because we had already prohibited that activity. but the impact of sanctions is it's freezing the assets in the united states, so no one around the world can use them. they're being used by banks around the world. by major companies and congu conglomerates around the world. so that's the impact is making sure that not just in the united states, but the rest of the world can follow suit and hit our alarm. >> it's not just banks that use the ofac sdn list, there are certain governments that actually will pursue parallel blocking actions on their own, based on an ofac sanction. so we do get a magnifying effect from a number of countries when

ofac takes action. >> thank you. second question, still on north korea, either one of you who has more information try to answer this one. i'm going to cite a "new york times" article. as a conservative, i don't often cite "new york times" articles. but in this case i think they have done some good work. in the article on the 8th, it was reported north korea may now be exporting less to china but north korea may also be receiving trade credits from china, to finance continued imports, and of course these trade credits will help nullify the effect of sanctions, even if north korea were having trouble coming up with hard currency. so if chinese entities, including bangs, are negotiating trade sanctions, shouldn't the treasury be designating them? >> that's a great point and i think we are seeing, as they evolve in response to u.n. security council resolutions, a constant effort to evade

sanctions and barter is one of the ways they're -- so trade credits or maybe just plain old barter is another way they're trying to evade the effect of the financial hammer lock that we're endeavoring to put on them. so we are tracking that. if you trade with north korea, i don't care if you're trading in dollars or yuan or whatever, any barter relationship exposes you to u.s. sanctions. >> thank you, chairman, i yield back. yield my time to the chair. >> the gentleman yields back and there's one minute left remaining from the gentleman's time, if i could ask one final question to our witnesses with respect to north korea. a lot of the questions today on north korea focused on secondary sanctions on chinese entities. we've talked a lot about the fact that those secondary sanctions may not yet have been fully exhausted. to the extent that is the case,

is that because of u.s. fear or concern that we may lose beijing cooperation, or is it merely a resource issue for ofac and treasury? >> it's not a fear, in any stretch of the imagination, we are engaged, we have a game plan, we have a strategy and we are executing that strategy. that strategy involves a number of different prongs of activity of which treasury action is but one, so we are maintaining synchronizization with the activities in the united nations, with our ambassador there, with state department, law enforcement intelligence and the department of defense. so when it sometimes seems like we're not quite sure why we're synchronizing things the way we are, we would be happy to come up and explain things to you because there's a method to this full on economic pressure campaign. >> again, i would like to thank

our witnesses, not only for your testimony today but your service and the work that you're putting in to keep the american people safe and to advance the national security interests of our country. and without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses to the chair, which will be forwarded to the witnesses for their response. i ask our witnesses to please respond to those as promptly as you're able, and this hearing is now adjourned. >> shouldn't be boycotting saudi arabia, what they are doing in yemen is heartbreaking and how repressive they are in their own country. they are much more oppressive than saudi arabia. why don't we focus. don't you worry about the sanctions and what they are

doing to the people in these countries, like the people of cuba? we're supposed to be supporting private enterprise and yet the new sanctions now are hurting the very private families that have bread and breakfast, that have their own restaurants. those are the ones hurt by new sanctions trump has just imposed. what do you think the sanctions on iran are doing to normal every day iranian people. shouldn't iran be rewarded for the iran nuclear deal instead of being penalized? i think you got it all wrong, congress people, and ofac. go after saudi arabia. go after rom ko, the saudi company you want to trade on stock exchange. saudi arabia number ones weapons purchaser in the united states. what they have done with those weapons is destroy the people of yemen. that is so -- coming up on c-span3, a

discussion about the future of turkey after recent conflict and what may lie ahead after elections in november. after that conference on u.s. military cooperation with south korea and tensions with north korea. then the senate judiciary hearing on gun background checks and a proposal to ban certain devices. later supreme court oral argument in a case brought by new jersey governor chris christie to legalize sports betting in his state. tonight on c-span a look at defense funding readiness with military and elected officials and executives from the defense industry. they discuss equipment and people required to handle current and future global conflict. here is a preview. >> we're obviously going to defend ourselves against nuclear north korea god forbid iran becomes a nuclear weapons state, we're going to defend ourselves against them, too.

we're going to keep fighting terrorists unfortunately. we have europe and asia traditionally as congressman gallagher was saying this morning have been areas we have not wanted to see dominated by another hostile power. we're going to continue to do that, i think. so everyone's candidate for this, we're going to scale back our ambitions, going to be middle east. i'd love for it to return to the obscuribscurity it deserves. that's not going to happen. it's going to impose itself on us. we're talking about risk and resources. when we talk about resources everyone goes to this the budget, top line, how do we increase it. it also is intellectual resources. how do we think about fighting these potential conflicts in the future differently. >> you can watch the discussion about defense in its entirety from reagan national defense

forum in simi valley, california, tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span. >> the second session of 115th congress gets under way this week with the senate returning on wednesday. that day will see the swearing in of two new democratic lawmakers, doug jones of alabama and tina smith of minnesota. the house returns the following week on monday. in the new year congress faces a government funding deadline with temporary spending set to expire january 19th. also on the calendar, this year's state of the union address from president trump before joint session of congress. as always you can watch the house live on c-span and see the senate on our companion network c-span2. >> this weekend c-span's city tour takes you to springfield, missouri. while in springfield we're working with media com to explore literary scene and history of birth place of route 66 in southwestern missouri. saturday at noon eastern on book

tv author jeremy nealy talks about the conflict occurring along kansas/missouri border in the struggle over slavery in his book "the border between them." >> in 1858 john brown having left kansas comes back to the territory and he begins a series of raids into western missouri during which his men will liberate enslaved people from missouri and help them escape to freedom. in the course of this, they will kill a number of slave holders. so the legend or the notoriety of john brown really grows as part of this struggle that people locally understand is really the beginning of the civil war. >> then sunday at 2:00 p.m. on american history tv, we visit the nra national sporting arms museum. >> theodore roosevelt was probably our shootingest president. he was a very, very avid hunter. first thing he did when he left