--- title: North Korea: U.S. Sanctions 'Would Not Work Against Us' description: North Korea told the U.S. that sanctions and pressure won’t work to force the country into action on its nuclear program. canonical: https://time.com/5480987/north-korea-united-states-sanctions/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-12-16T16:05:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T22:17:12.911Z article:section: Politics og:title: North Korea: U.S. Sanctions and Pressure 'Would Not Work Against Us' og:description: The country made the statement in its state-run news agency og:url: https://time.com/5480987/north-korea-united-states-sanctions/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ca8101274195143/6989419f8fd2ee86d235d65f/north-korea-pressure-sanctions.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5000 og:image:height: 2813 og:image:alt: north-korea-pressure-sanctions og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: North Korea: U.S. Sanctions and Pressure 'Would Not Work Against Us' twitter:description: The country made the statement in its state-run news agency twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ca8101274195143/6989419f8fd2ee86d235d65f/north-korea-pressure-sanctions.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # North Korea: U.S. Sanctions and Pressure 'Would Not Work Against Us' > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=8a88264e-f86c-4aa7-a57a-5323d5ad007b&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) by [Nour Al Ali / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Nour Al Ali / Bloomberg Contributor Dec 16, 2018 4:05 PM UTC  North Korean youths take their morning run as smoke billows from the chimneys of Pyongyang Power Plant in the background in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Dec. 15, 2018. North Korean youths take their morning run as smoke billows from the chimneys of Pyongyang Power Plant in the background in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Dec. 15, 2018. Dita Alangkara—AP/REX/Shutterstock by [Nour Al Ali / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Nour Al Ali / Bloomberg Contributor Dec 16, 2018 4:05 PM UTC North Korea told the U.S. that sanctions and pressure—as evident from the past—won’t work to force the country into action on its nuclear program. “The U.S. should realize before it is too late that ‘maximum pressure’ would not work against us and take a sincere approach to implementing the Singapore DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement,” the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency said Sunday, citing a statement from the policy research director of the Institute for American Studies at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “President Trump avails himself of every possible occasion to state his willingness to improve DPRK-U.S. relations,” according to the statement, which added that the State Department, however, is “instead bent on bringing the DPRK-U.S. relations back to the status of last year which was marked by exchanges of fire.” North Korea has been proposing relations be improved on a step-by-step approach “of resolving what is feasible one by one, by giving priority to confidence building,” according to the statement. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5480987/north-korea-united-states-sanctions/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5480987/north-korea-united-states-sanctions/"},"headline":"North Korea: U.S. Sanctions and Pressure 'Would Not Work Against Us'","datePublished":"2018-12-16T16:05:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T22:17:12.911Z","description":"The country made the statement in its state-run news agency","url":"https://time.com/5480987/north-korea-united-states-sanctions/","keywords":["North Korea","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ca8101274195143/6989419f8fd2ee86d235d65f/north-korea-pressure-sanctions.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nour Al Ali / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3ca8101274195143/6989419f8fd2ee86d235d65f/north-korea-pressure-sanctions.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"north-korea-pressure-sanctions","caption":"Daily Life, Pyongyang, North Korea - 15 Dec 2018","creditText":"Dita Alangkara—AP/REX/Shutterstock","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/north-korea/","name":"North Korea"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5480987/north-korea-united-states-sanctions/","name":"North Korea: U.S. Sanctions and Pressure 'Would Not Work Against Us'"}}]}] ```