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U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un shake hands at the Freedom House in Panmunjom on June 30, 2019. / Source: Yonhap News

North Korea has condemned the latest round of U.S. sanctions, warning that Washington’s continued hostility will be met with “corresponding patience and countermeasures.”

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on November 6, Kim Eun-chol, vice foreign minister for U.S. affairs, issued a statement titled “Clarifying Our Position in Response to the U.S. Administration’s Persistent Hostility Toward Our State.”

Kim said “the malicious nature of the United States has once again been revealed without a filter,” adding that the Biden administration’s fifth unilateral sanctions on Pyongyang “marks the end of speculation about any policy change.” He continued, “The current U.S. administration has once again reaffirmed its unchanging, deeply rooted hostility toward the DPRK.”

“The United States should not harbor any illusion that its tactics of pressure, coercion, and blackmail will ever bear fruit with us,” Kim said, stressing that the sanctions “will have no impact whatsoever on our strategic thinking or policy toward Washington.” He added that the administration’s “obsession with sanctions will only be remembered as a symbol of the incurable failure of its North Korea policy.”

Kim also warned, “No matter how many sanction tools the United States mobilizes, it cannot alter the strategic balance now fixed between the DPRK and the U.S. The foolish act of repeating failed old scenarios while expecting new results is nothing but stupidity.”

The remarks came after the U.S. Treasury Department on November 4 sanctioned eight North Korean nationals and two North Korea–based institutions for laundering funds linked to cybercrimes. The State Department also announced plans to designate seven third-country vessels involved in shipping North Korean coal and iron ore to China as U.N. sanctions targets.

Observers say the move reflects mounting pressure after President Donald Trump’s “surprise overture” to Kim Jong-un during last week’s APEC summit in Gyeongju went unanswered by Pyongyang.