[indiscernible] will have more from cpac later tonight and throughout the weekend. later today treasury secretary steven mnuchin announced new sanctions against north korea for its nuclear program. the sections target the north korean shipping and trading industry. here are secretary mnuchin's comments on the new sanctions. >> hello, everybody. today the treasury department is announcing the largest set of sanctions ever imposed in connection with north korea. the action targets deceptive shipping practices that have enabled the kim regime to fund its dangerous weapons programs. actions target shipping and trading companies, vessels and individuals across the world who

we know are working with north korea's behalf. sanctioning we are 27 entities, 28 vessels, and one individual, all involved in sanctions invasion schemes. today's actions will significantly hinder north korea's and -- korea's ability to conduct invasive maritime fuel -- andhat limit the regime's ability to ship goods through international waters. to cut off sources of revenue that this regime derives from u.n. and u.s. prohibited trade to fund its nuclear ballistic missile programs. we are all show -- also issuing to putl advisory

everyone on notice of north korea's illicit maritime tactics and underscore the significant sanctions risk of engaging in maritime business with north korea. new imagery ofg the deceptive shipping practices used by those who aid and profit from illicit trade with north korea. these images reveal ship to ship transfers of fuel and other products destined for north korea in an attempt to and -- attempt to evade sanctions. they shined a spotlight on the practices employed by the government of north korea to falsify, identifying that falsify identifying information on ships and conceal illicit cargo. and evasiveons tactics are prohibited by un security council resolutions. fully committed to shutting those who engage and trade with them. through today's actions we are putting companies and countries

across the world on notice, that this administration views compliance with the u.s. and u.n. sanctions as a national security imperative area of those who trade with north korea do so at their own peril. the united states will leverage our economic strength to enforce president trump's directive, that any country that chooses to help north korea fund its nuclear and ballistic missile programs will not be allowed to do business with anyone in the united states. program serves one goal, to keep him in power. the united states will not sit idly by while he threatens american allies and territories. this administration is committed to full, irreversible, and permanent denuclearization of -- ofme -- of the nuclear

the korean peninsula. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> in recent weeks there seems to have been a thaw between south korea and north korea, the participation and deal of the games, but there hasn't been a missile test in recent weeks. why the sanctions and why now when it looks like there is a beginning of an opening? >> while we appreciate the fact that there haven't been tests, that is not a terrific standard of what we are applying. it is clear this is a directive that the president has issued going back to his time at the u.n., when the vice president was over in the region he made it very clear we were working on as you know there is a huge process that goes into preparing the sanction packages and as soon as they were ready we were prepared to release them today. weapons,ntion nuclear

do we have any specific example of this being used to enhance , specificear program examples of where they breached trade to do that? secondly, is there a linkage between a speech the president made for me last week we set -- week when he said we will be so far ahead of everyone else in nuclear like you've never seen before. >> those are independent issues. our capabilities are obviously far surpassed the rest of the world in those capabilities. i'm not going to make any comments on direct, on the source of funds. but i can assure you that he is diverting money from the people of the country to support his programs. >> thank you very much. thank you for joining us. this target 27 entities, 28 vessels. best 27 vessels.

-- 27 vessels. give us some sort of scope or context, is that a small portion of the ships involved in the -- involved and the transfers involved? is this a larger portion? how -- portion? how impactful iq is going after the 27 entities for the 20 vessels? >> this is very impactful. this is virtually all the ships there using at this moment in time. we will obviously continue to monitor and use all of our resources to monitor activities going forward and we will do new sanctions as needed going forward. this is a very, very significant action, along with i might just say the advisory at the coast -- advisory that the coast guard has worked on with us that we believe are impactful. >> do you expect the ship to ship transfers to be in limine -- be eliminated after this? >> we are going to do everything to stop the ship to ship transfers. >> to that point and using the words you just spoke, we will do everything to stop ship to ship transfers. clearly we have the intelligence

to identify them. this feels like the economic equivalent of a blockade. is that the next step, a military blockade to, in fact, block the ship to ship transfers if the sanctions are not effective? >> i think as the president said before we're not going to announce in advance anything we may do in the future on military actions. we are monitoring. what i would say again is right now we are using the full power of the united states economically and working with our allies to cut them off economically. that's the priority of the maximum pressure campaign at the moment. [inaudible] >> again i'm not going to confirm that. what i will say is we're using all of our sanctions capabilities and we continue to do so to economically cut off illicit activities. >> is that just purely the number of [inaudible]

>> i think we think it is both the largest in number we have ever done against them, as well as impactful. i would just say that this brings up the total to over 450 sanctions that we have north -- have on north korea. i would say approximately half of those have been done in the last year. so we have had sanctions since 2005 under president trump's -- since under president trump's 2005. leadership we've done half of those in the last year. >> [inaudible] i'm notchin: >> again going to make any specific examples against -- expect people to follow through of the obligations of the u.n. sanctions and our sanctions. >> to what extent is russia helped north korea a great sanction? i'm not going to make any

-- >> i'm not going to make any comments specific on that other than to say that obviously russia and china are two countries that have traded within, and we're working actively with both of those. >> mr. secretary what indicators , were used to measure whether or not the sanctions are successful? sec. mnuchin: we have both classified and unclassified indicators that we monitor as to the success, and i will tell you we believe that the economic sanctions are beginning to have a significant impact on their ability to fund their programs. would you let us know of some of the unclassified indicators that you use? sec. mnuchin: again, in the said annette prepared to go to the difference in classified and unclassified but we will follow up. >> why not blacklist russian ships? sec. mnuchin: again, we're prepared to blacklist russian ships to the extent there are russian ships. so let me be clear, whether they are russian ships, chinese ships, we don't care whose ships they are. if we have intelligence that

people are doing things we will put sanctions on the and we will -- on the them and we will go forward with that. olympics closing ceremony's are having on the korean peninsula. justresident's daughter arrived in south korea. is that time in more than a coincidence or you're trying to send a coordinated message? sec. mnuchin: ivanka trump has been briefed on this. she's been part of the team. she had dinner with president moon. they had a private discussion in advance about this occurring, and this is been an interagency process. so i think i said earlier, when the vice president went over there he announced the sanctions, were not ready at the -- he announced and ease, these sanctions were not ready at the time. had he been ready to be released we would have done this earlier and there's an extensive process, an enormous amount of work that's been done with the intel community on an interagency basis to get where we are today. in the back. >> [indiscernible]

in other words, what shows if it doesn't work? what next? sec. mnuchin: i don't think will make any comments on what options are or are not in the future. we will continue as we see things that should be sanctioned. i can assure you we will continue to roll out new sanctions. as you know since i've been in -- been here, this has been an evolving process and although we don't comment on future sanctions, i can assure you we have a large team, the largest ever dedicated to focus on north korea illicit activities. -- she has the appropriate access to brief president moon.

>> he said the greatest threat will be military or economic? >> i'm not going to comment on any military issues. we think the economic activities are significant and the sanctions are working. i'm not commenting one way or another. >> do you have anything? >> that's for south korea to decide. just emphasize our actions are not against the people of north korea. they are against the people of -- there against the

actions of north korea -- i cannot rule that out. , withthe u.n. sanctions the consent of state flags, they are certain rights countries have and i'm not ruling anything out. --say a ship again, i'm not going to make any confident -- comments on what the military may or may not do. right with the consent of the state flag. we will actively, and we expect states that as we give them information and a deep lack of ships. i think that's also something that's very important.

>> do you think the sanctions will entice north korea to have a change of heart? >> again am not going to speculate what the change of heart will or won't be. again what i said is we deeply the sanctions work. there's no still question the case the sanctions and unified sanctions is what brought i ran to the table. we believe that the economic might of the united states and our allies cutting them off will limit their ability to continue their programs. don't have much economic exposure in the u.s.. what are you going to do to pressure them further? , -- >> as you are aware we vividly to do both primary sanctions and secondary sanctions. so if these companies are doing this is in other places in the world, and that is facilitated, we have the ability to cut off the banking system in other parts of the world. and we will look at that very seriously. >> are you actively considering

laying -- considering any further -- under the patriot act of any banks and financial institutions? >> again as a matter of policy of not going to give specifics as to what we are considering and what we are not considering, but but i assure you we are reviewing information as it associates with banks that are doing illicit activities. last time you were here, there -- >> last time you were here, there was supposed to be this calculator on the treasure -- on the treasury website, the irs website. people could go and figure it out. there's this turf battle between treasury and irs and omb on how to deal with regulations on the tax code. has this rollout gone as smoothly as -- >> let me comment first of all, the calculator is on track. i think it is being released next week. it is being released next week.

i think we are going to give the press a demonstration of this. and again i'm a just emphasize, i think the rollout of the tax plan, we had very close coordination between the irs and the treasury and the white house and the omb. i think there have been some articles about a memorandum of understanding that treasury has had for 30 years with omb. but again i assure you that mick mulvaney and i are working very closely together, and to the extent that makes sense to reconsider how things have been done over the last 30 years, we are already doing that. >> and the president said today at cpac the past administrations, when talking about the deficit and debt, have let it go to hell, i believe were his words. the projections are still close to a trillion dollar deficit that will ramp up in future years. the administration -- >> let me comment on that because i think that's an important issue. as we said that that has gone

from 10 trillion to 20 trillion over the last eight years. the president is concerned about that. a big component of that was spent in middle east on wars as the president has talked about. the the president has been very clear that getting more money for the military was a major priority of his, and that's something that was achieved. as part of that the democrats required us to raise nonmilitary money. i think given the importance of what the president wanted to do with military, that was critical that we get it done and we will be looking at the issue of budget deficits going forward. >> mr. secretary. while we were on the subject of taxes, where is the administration on the idea of a to percent -- of a 25% rise in the gas tax that the president has suggested meetings with members of congress? >> i will tell you something that is being considered. there is no decision on that. as some of you noted in my testimony the president is focused on the idea of an internet sales tax. let me say this is not a new tax. this is most states have a sales or use tax, and the president wants to make sure that the

states are getting the money that they deserve and that they can spent on infrastructure. again, mr. secretary, hubley who -- secretary, do you believe it would be in any way harmful to raise -- on an inflation-adjusted basis as some have suggested? >> i would comment we haven't had any worrisome in the gas tax and a lot of typing is one of the things were looking it's one of the issues we haven't made any decisions. >> you haven't made any determinations on whether or not it would be economically harmful? >> we have done some analysis on it but it's on a preliminary basis and i think we're prepared -- and it's something were not prepared to decide on right now. yes. >> can you update on the monitoring of the china-north korea corridor the lifeline for , north korea which is not monitored by any international organization? >> i'm not going to comment on, specifically, what ability we have to monitor things and what

ability we don't, but i can assure you that we have a lot of capabilities. >> the prime minister quoted you suggesting 70% of benefits of tax cuts go to workers. he has a similar agenda he's trying to get through. at the time, what does this of it just -- what does the evidence suggest that the flow through to workers -- cycling on north korea, the sanctions, you briefed him on those as well. do you expect to have strong support from australia? >> i do. i've known the prime minister for a long time. he's trying to focus on a very similar economic agenda to what we've done. he explained to me how he has lowered the corporate tax rate, the small and medium-size companies and how he is focused to do it on bigger companies. he congratulated us on our success and hopefully that will show the success for him there. and we talked about this statistic in the past we believe that a major part of the burden of corporate taxes are borne by the workers. and then on north korea we had a very productive discussion on north korea. he is very supportive and we've

encouraged him to work with us on sanctions and other areas, so very, very productive discussion. i know he is looking for to seeing the president today. >> the 70%- dividends that goes to workers, is that all in wage growth or some other dividend? >> it's mostly in wage growth. take one or two more questions, i don't want to leave here without emphasizing -- you haven't asked me yet, we are working on russia sanctions. i can assure you that is in the process. i will be back here in the next several weeks to talk about that. emphasize,st want to i think, you know, under section 240 one we did deliver both the classified and unclassified report. and as i repeatedly said, we are recording -- we are working on

sanctions as a follow-up to that. why don't we take the last question. >> [inaudible] >> we will continue to look at election meddling. i might just add we are closely working with the fbi on giving information as it relates to the recent suit and as appropriate we will look at sanctioning individuals. i will also comment we already have sanctions against one of the very significant people that were on their list. >> didn't change anybody, thank you, everybody. >> [inaudible] or as a pointed out with the election -- >> again, let me just say quickly, you know, again as it relates to north korea, we are looking at everybody the same. so the -- the ability that we have under north korea is not differentiated by country. we have done over 100 sanctions under our ukraine and russia abilities that we have done since the president has been in office, we will continue to look

at those abilities as well as the authority we have been given under capsa, which, you know, had huge bipartisan support and election meddling. thank you very much. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] have more live coverage tonight with epa administrator scott pruitt at 8:00 p.m. eastern. and tomorrow, cpac and second amendment and the conversation with on the director mick mulvaney. also california congressman and has committee chair devin nunes light saturday. that is scheduled to start at 12:40 p.m. eastern time. the national governors association meeting to discuss jobs, the opioid crisis, and the future of agriculture, at 10:00 eastern after washington journal. monday on c-span's landmark cases. we look at the supreme court .ate macola v maryland

it solidified the ability to take actions not explicitly mentioned in the constitution and restricted state action against the use of its power. university of virginia law professor fara peterson and mark helen back. securing and nation. watch landmark cases live monday at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or listen with the c-span radio app. each case,und on order a copy of the landmark cases companion book, available landmark5 at c-span.org/ cases. there is a link on her website to the national constitution center's international -- interactive constitution. ahead of the governors association winter meeting this weekend, some of the nations governor held a briefing