US President Donald Trump on Friday created a blacklist of countries that Washington says unjustly detain Americans, spelling out harsh punishments including bans on travel.
In an executive order, Trump said the US would designate “state sponsors of wrongful detention,” similar to the powerful tool of branding countries as state sponsors of terrorism.
“With this EO [executive order] you are signing today, you are drawing a line in the sand that US citizens will not be used as bargaining chips,” Trump aide Sebastian Gorka told reporters in the Oval Office.
Photo: AP
The Trump administration did not immediately name countries for the new blacklist, but a senior official said that China, Iran and Afghanistan would be under review as they “persistently participate in hostage diplomacy.”
The countries designated by the US Department of State would be subject to sanctions and US export controls, and officials involved in the imprisonment would be barred from entry.
In one measure rarely taken by the US, officials said that the US Department of State could bar US citizens from visiting countries put on the blacklist.
Currently, the US only strictly bans its citizens from traveling to North Korea, a step taken after US student Otto Warmbier was detained in 2016 and released the following year in a vegetative state, dying shortly afterward.
The new blacklist can also target groups that effectively control territory, but are not recognized as states.
The US across administrations has put a top priority on freeing Americans overseas, negotiating prisoner swaps to free high-profile detainees including in Russia.
Trump has trumpeted his record on freeing Americans, with officials saying 72 prisoners have been released overseas under his watch. A US official said that the new executive order would make it easier to take action without going through a “burdensome” process.
The US can also remove countries from the blacklist if it decides they have come into compliance.
The US Department of State routinely helps Americans detained overseas and then assesses whether they were jailed for wrongful reasons, including as political bargaining chips.
During former US president Joe Biden’s term, China released all Americans considered wrongfully detained in part in return for the US loosening a warning against Americans traveling to the Asian power, advice that had hurt the business climate.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
CHINESE INCURSIONS, SORTIES: President William Lai thanked military officers for shouldering the responsibility of defending the survival and development of Taiwan President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that aggression would inevitably fail, pointing — on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing — to the lessons from World War II and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958. Taiwan has over the past five years repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity including war games around the nation as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims that Taipei rejects. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are to oversee a military parade in Beijing today to mark the
RSS