As part of its continuing action against North Korea, the US Treasury has taken the unusual step of invoking section 311 USA PATRIOT Act to deny a Chinese bank access to the American financial system.

The US Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has labelled the Bank of Dandong, a Chinese bank that it accuses of being a conduit for illicit North Korean financial activity, as a foreign bank "of primary money laundering concern" which must be isolated from the US financial system.  In addition, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has blacklisted two Chinese individuals and one Chinese company in response to North Korea’s development of weapons of mass destruction and flouting of resolutions made by the United Nations Security Council. This has been hailed as 'unprecedented' and, in some quarters, inflammatory, but the Treasury has sanctioned a small Chinese bank in the past, namely Banco Delta Asia of Macau, also using s311. The Treasury accused it of being "a willing pawn for the North Korean government to engage in corrupt financial activities through Macau."
 
FinCEN is taking steps to prevent the Bank of Dandong from helping North Korea with a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking it has issued in line with s311. It is thereby proposing to prohibit US financial institutions from maintaining correspondent accounts for, or on behalf of, that bank. Under the proposed rule, the relevant financial institutions are also to be required to apply "special due diligence" to their foreign correspondent accounts that is reasonably designed to guard against their use to process transactions involving the Bank of Dandong. FinCEN has submitted the notice to the Federal Register, the US federal gazette, with a 60-day comment period.
 
OFAC has sanctioned or 'designated' a Chinese citizen called Sun Wei, whom it suspects of running a cover company on behalf of FTB, North Korea’s primary foreign exchange bank that OFAC sanctioned in 2013 for involvement in WMD proliferation. OFAC also 'designated' Li Hong Ri, another alleged setter-up of front companies. OFAC has, at the same time, sanctioned Dalian Global Unity Shipping Co Ltd which, according to the United Nations, has been actively involved in eight cases involving the smuggling of luxury goods.