US Hits State-Owned Myanmar Gem Firm With Coup Sanctions | Company News

By MATTHEW LEE, AP Diplomatic Author

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday strike Myanmar’s junta with new sanctions in response to February’s coup in the Southeast Asian nation.

The Condition and Treasury departments introduced they were being imposing sanctions on the country’s main, point out-owned gem corporation, Myanmar Gems Business. The sanctions freeze any belongings the agency retains in the U.S. or in U.S. jurisdictions and bar American citizens from accomplishing business with it.

The firm is a main exporter of gems and semi-important stones like jade, which convey in substantial quantities of earnings to authorities coffers.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the sanctions deliver “a apparent sign to the army that the United States will continue to keep escalating tension on the regime’s revenue streams until it ceases its violence, releases all those unjustly detained, lifts martial regulation and the nationwide point out of emergency, removes telecommunications constraints, and restores Burma to the path of democracy.”

The U.S. and other Western nations have been steadily ramping up sanctions strain on Myanmar, also recognised as Burma, considering the fact that the Feb. 1 coup and subsequent lethal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

“The Burmese armed forces regime has overlooked the will of the men and women of Burma to restore the country’s route toward democracy and has ongoing to dedicate deadly assaults versus protesters in addition to random assaults on bystanders,” Blinken claimed.

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