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Our only agenda is to publish the truth so you can be an informed participant in democracy. We need your help. More Info ### I would like to contribute One Time Monthly Yearly Join Now ![](\\" ![](\\" Cory Gardner stated on September 24, 2017 in an interview: North Korea is \"the fifth or fourth most sanctioned nation.\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" mostly-true/4ac7c61540eff5211f6a04d98a6bc93a.jpg.\\") ![\\"mostly- true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") * National * Homeland Security * Cory Gardner ![\\"John](\\" By John Kruzel September 27, 2017 # Is North Korea the 4th most sanctioned nation? Amid a war of words between the United States and North Korea, Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., took to the Sunday shows to argue Washington should apply more pressure to Pyongyang. While the United States has recently dialed up sanctions against Kim Jong Un’s regime, Gardner argued they could go further. \"(North Korea) is now the fifth or fourth most sanctioned nation,\" Gardner said, \"meaning that we have a long ways to go to continue to ratchet up the economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea and the enablers of North Korea.\" We decided to investigate how sanctions against North Korea compare with those targeting other countries. Rankings based on Office of Foreign Assets Control list An aide to Gardner pointed us to a chart from a recent paper by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. That paper, which was presented before Congress, ranks North Korea as the fourth most sanctioned country, behind Ukraine/Russia, Syria and Iran, respectively. Rankings were derived by comparing countries according to the number of sanctioned people and entities tracked by the Treasury Department. That sanctions list is officially known as the Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals list, or OFAC list. It’s important to note that the data in the chart below was current as of Aug. 29, 2017, so it doesn’t include more recent sanctions. ![](\\" uxRjAAMipzjUBnETJIr2paHa7fQa_PwHLOtZI1RrJxqlWZ6a\\"/) Gardner cited the above data not only to drive home his point that North Korea could be more heavily sanctioned, but also to show the impact of legislation he backed, the North Korea Policy Sanctions Enhancement Act, which took effect Feb. 18, 2016. \"Last year, when Congress passed my legislation, North Korea was the eighth most sanctioned nation on Earth,\" Gardner said. \"As a result of that legislation, it\'s now the fifth or fourth most sanctioned nation, meaning that we have a long ways to go to continue to ratchet up the economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea and the enablers of North Korea.\" (Note: We’re interested here in U.S. sanctions, not sanctions imposed by other countries.) We asked the Treasury Department whether the rankings were accurate but did not receive a reply by publication time. The limits of the OFAC list-as-ranking Even if you assume the raw numbers are correct, several experts we spoke to thought this approach to country rankings was problematic—though some allowed that a more far-reaching measurement would be tough to calculate. #### Featured Fact-check ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/322c808c00e73c217d17772ddd5a0eb5.jpg\\") ![](\\" Instagram_logo_2016.svg/8b142c91ebe468a84a192e6df2b7b994.jpg\\") Instagram posts stated on August 12, 2024 in an Instagram post Kamala Harris posted about banning Barron Trump’s friend from X because he wore a “Biden Loves Minors” shirt. ![\\"true\\"](\\" false/33efdb6633e5e2fdc2d4e2f63383a1e0.jpg.\\") ![\\"false\\"](\\" false.jpg\\") By Sofia Ahmed • August 14, 2024 Experts’ main objection was that ranking countries based solely on the quantity of sanctions wouldn’t necessarily capture the quality, or impact, of sanctions. \"Gauging how tough sanctions are is not simply a count of measures taken, but what share of economic activity they are covering, how willing other states are to implement them, and the related ability of the country to circumvent them through evasion,\" said Stephan Haggard, a professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at the University of California-San Diego. Joseph deThomas, professor of international affairs at Penn State University, said that while there is \"no perfect method\" for setting up a ranking system of this kind, basing it on the quantity of sanctions alone misses the mark. He suggested taking into account \"the amount of financial, economic or national security pain inflicted on the sanctioned country.\" \"Is a country with a lot of people banned from getting visas more sanctioned than one that has one sanction on its Central Bank that denies it access to the dollar?\" DeThomas said. \"Not likely.\" We reached out to Anthony Ruggiero, who authored the Foundation for Defense of Democracies paper, who argued the quantitative approach illuminates several key points about North Korea, relative to other sanctioned countries. He also emphasized the importance of reading the qualitative discussion of North Korean sanctions elsewhere in the paper. \"This approach verifies North Korea is not the most sanctioned county in the world, and provides a pathway toward further invest of additional sanctions against North Korea and its facilitators,\" he said. Some experts acknowledged the difficulty of carrying out a more holistic approach. \"As you can imagine, such a modeling exercise is really, really hard, and a count of measures is not going to do the work,\" Haggard said. Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said there are better ways of assessing sanctions impact, \"but they require actual time, effort, and modeling, and honestly there isn’t much of a market for comparative sanctions analysis.\" Our ruling Gardner said, \"(North Korea) is now the fifth or fourth most sanctioned nation.\" A paper by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies ranks North Korea as the fourth most sanctioned country, behind Ukraine/Russia, Syria and Iran, respectively. According to the paper’s author, rankings were based on the Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned people and entities. The Treasury Department did not confirm the rankings. However, experts we spoke to said ranking countries based solely on its number of sanctions was problematic because numbers alone wouldn’t necessarily capture the total impact of sanctions. We rate this Mostly True Share the Facts 2017-09-27 15:50:07 UTC PolitiFact ![\\"PolitiFact\\"](\\" logo-big.jpg\\"/) 5 1 7 ![\\"PolitiFact](\\" mostlytrue.jpg\\") PolitiFact Rating: Mostly True North Korea is \"the fifth or fourth most sanctioned nation.\" Cory Gardner Sen., R-Colo ![](\\" Interview Sunday, September 24, 2017 2017-09-24 Read More info #### Read About Our Process The Principles of the Truth-O-Meter ### Our Sources Defense of Democracies, \"A Legislative Proposal to Impede North Korea’s Access to Finance,\" Sept. 13, 2017 U.S. Treasury Department, \"Treasury Sanctions Banks and Representatives Linked to North Korean Financial Networks,\" Sept. 26, 2017 U.S. Treasury Department, \"Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN) Human Readable Lists,\" Sept. 26, 2017 Email interview with Marcus Noland of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Sept. 26, 2017 Email interview with Stephan Haggard, professor of Korea-Pacific Studies at the University of California-San Diego, Sept. 26, 2017 Email interview with Joseph de Thomas, professor of international affairs at Penn State University, Sept. 26, 2017 Interview with Anthony Ruggiero, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Sept. 26, 2017 ## Browse the Truth-O-Meter ### More by John Kruzel ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on July 25, 2019 in a phone call: \"A lot of people are talking about\" the removal of a \"very fair prosecutor\" in Ukraine. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By John Kruzel • September 26, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Bloggers stated on September 6, 2019 in a Facebook post: Says several well-known charities such as Goodwill and American Red Cross overpay their CEOs and spend a small percentage on helping people. ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"barely-true\\"](\\" barely-true.jpg\\") By Jon Greenberg • September 17, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on September 12, 2019 in a speech: The United States is \"very energy independent.\" ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By John Kruzel • September 13, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Sheldon Whitehouse stated on September 6, 2019 in an op-ed: \"One unnamed donor gave $17 million to the Leo-affiliated Judicial Crisis Network to block the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland and to support Gorsuch; then a donor — perhaps the same one — gave another $17 million to prop up Kavanaugh.\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" ![\\"true\\"](\\" By John Kruzel • September 11, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Andrew Yang stated on September 4, 2019 in a town hall: The Green New Deal \"would do away with commercial air travel.\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By John Kruzel • September 6, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" John Delaney stated on August 27, 2019 in an interview: The Amazon rainforest fires are \"directly related to trade\" tensions between the United States and China. ![\\"false\\"](\\" ![\\"false\\"](\\" By John Kruzel • September 6, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Bernie Sanders stated on August 26, 2019 in an Instagram post: \"Last year, South Carolina spent $21,756 per prison inmate and $11,552 per student.\" ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"mostly-true\\"](\\" mostly-true.jpg\\") By John Kruzel • August 27, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Ken Cuccinelli stated on August 22, 2019 in a panel discussion: A federal pilot program to DNA test illegal immigrants showed \"something like 30% (of test subjects) are fake families.\" ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" th.jpg\\") ![\\"half-true\\"](\\" true.jpg\\") By John Kruzel • August 26, 2019 ![](\\" ![](\\" Donald Trump stated on August 19, 2019 in a tweet: \"Wow, Report Just Out! 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North Korea is the fifth or fourth most sanctioned nation