Defense Bill Clears Senate, Includes Gardner Provisions to Sanction North Korea

Statement

U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) voted in support of the conference report to accompany the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2020 today, which includes his provisions to recommit the United States to a policy of maximum pressure and to enforce mandatory sanctions under Senator Gardner's North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act, signed into law in 2016. Gardner's legislation marked the first time Congress approved mandatory, standalone sanctions on North Korea. It was also the first bill to impose sanctions to counter North Korea's increasingly sophisticated and malicious cyber attacks. The bipartisan legislation passed the Senate today 86-8 and now heads to the President's desk for signature.

"The Administration should make clear to Pyongyang that the only way we will dismantle the U.S. and international sanctions regime is when Pyongyang completely dismantles every single nut and bolt of its illicit weapons programs -- not a minute earlier," said Senator Gardner. "North Korea will remain a global outcast until it reverses course from a long history of human rights abuses, aggression, and defying international law. I will continue to work with my colleagues and the Administration toward peaceful denuclearization of North Korea that is complete, verifiable, and irreversible."

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