Trump signs order to designate nations that hold Americans as sponsors of wrongful detention

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that would let the U.S. designate nations as state sponsors of wrongful detention, using the threat of associated sanctions to deter Americans from being detained abroad or taken hostage.

The designation, similar to the state sponsors of terrorism designation that the U.S. already imposes on some nations, will allow the State Department to target countries falling under the label with penalties such as economic restrictions, restrictions on visas for those involved and travel restrictions for Americans to those countries.

“Like the State Sponsor of Terrorism determination, no nation should want to end up on this list,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

It’s aimed at making it easier to impose penalties on nations that block or restrain Americans, and impose a major penalty on countries that don’t release those U.S. nationals.

“With this EO you are signing today, you are drawing a line in the sand that U.S. citizens will not be used a bargaining chips,” Sebastian Gorka, senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security Council, told Trump as he signed the order at the White House on Friday afternoon.

The designation is designed for Rubio to be able to lift the penalties if a nation changes its practices.

It wasn’t immediately clear when the U.S. might begin applying the new label and to which countries, but two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the order being signed cited China, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia as nations that could potentially face penalties under the new designation.

The order allows the designation to also be applied to groups that control territory even if they are not recognized governments.

Global Reach, a nonprofit organization that had advocated for the return of wrongfully detained Americans, praised the executive order.

“This designation is something that will put real teeth behind the US government’s efforts to bring home detained Americans and deter offending nations from engaging in ‘hostage diplomacy.’ The Trump Administration is taking action and that is showing results. The previous administration returned around 75 people in four years. The Trump Administration is only 228 days into their four-year term and has already brought home 72,” said Global Reach CEO Mickey Bergman.

Trump has made bringing home Americans jailed abroad a focus in his second term.

“We’ve gotten a lot of people out and we’ll continue,” Trump said Friday.

In July, his government organized a three-nation swap, securing the release of 10 jailed U.S. citizens and permanent residents from Venezuela in exchange for getting home migrants deported by the United States to El Salvador.

Seven other Americans determined to be wrongfully detained in Venezuela were returned this year.

A Russian-American woman who was convicted on treason charges for making a $52 donation to a charity aiding Ukraine was freed by Moscow in April as part of a prisoner swap. A similar swap in February freed an American teacher detained in Russia on drug charges.

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Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.