Sense of Congress

It is the sense of Congress that— (1) national governments and multilateral authorities must take action to mitigate documented delays and ensure that sanctions imposed with respect to North Korea do not hinder efforts to provide humanitarian relief to the people of North Korea; (2) the Department of the Treasury should provide timely and meaningful responses to requests for specific licenses given that humanitarian organizations typically have a limited time to execute projects that must be approved by multiple United States Government agencies and foreign governments; (3) because humanitarian assistance is unlikely to enable large-scale sanctions evasion and revenue generation, sanctions enforcement should focus on ongoing North Korean activities, including ship-to-ship transfers of coal and other goods, cyberattacks, and the use of forced labor abroad, all highlighted in reports issued by the United Nations Panel of Experts on North Korea and other authoritative sources; (4) financial institutions should recognize and consider the reputational and practical costs of impeding legitimate efforts to deliver life saving aid to North Korea; and (5) as of July 2026, the Department of State’s travel ban for humanitarian missions to North Korea, introduced in 2017, is inconsistent with the intent of the North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016 (22 U.S.C. 9201 et seq.), which explicitly exempted work related to the repatriation of the remains of United States veterans.