When President Trump announced last week that he was unexpectedly canceling some North Korean sanctions, it left more than just his Twitter following confused.
On Friday, Trump tweeted that the U.S. Treasury had announced "additional large scale sanctions" on North Korea, but he was already withdrawing them. The problem was, the Treasury never made that announcement — and it never intended to, Bloomberg reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
So sure, the sanctions Trump reportedly referenced technically involved North Korea. But it's also totally reasonable that Trump's tweet left current and former government officials "stunned," Bloomberg writes. State Department, Treasury, and White House officials wouldn't even mention the tweet for a few hours. They eventually settled on releasing an unattributed statement saying those Chinese sanctions hadn't been reversed, and that the government wouldn't "wouldn't pursue additional sanctions against North Korea," Bloomberg continues.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later explained the tweet as Trump saying he "likes Chairman Kim and he doesn't think these sanctions will be necessary." Yet according to two sources who spoke to Bloomberg, those sanctions weren't anywhere in the Treasury's plans.
-
Trump sends FBI to patrol DC, despite falling crimeSpeed Read Washington, D.C., 'has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world,' Trump said
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
-
ICE scraps age limits amid hiring pushSpeed Read Anyone 18 or older can now apply to be an ICE agent
-
Trump's global tariffs take effect, with new additionsSpeed Read Tariffs on more than 90 US trading partners went into effect, escalating the global trade war
-
House committee subpoenas Epstein filesSpeed Read The House Oversight Committee has issued a subpoena to the Justice Department for its Jeffrey Epstein files with an Aug. 19 deadline
-
India rejects Trump threat over Russian oilSpeed Read The president said he would raise tariffs on India for buying and selling Russian oil
-
NY's Hochul vows response to Texas gerrymanderSpeed Read Gov. Kathy Hochul has promised to play ball with redistricting that favors the Democrats
