New ‘State Sponsor Of Wrongful Detention’ Designation Created By Trump Executive Order
President Trump’s administration seeks to curb “hostage diplomacy” by foreign adversaries through new sanctions and travel restrictions.
President Donald J. Trump has signed an executive order to bolster efforts to protect U.S. nationals from being wrongfully detained abroad.
The order, which takes a hard-line stance against foreign governments using Americans as political pawns, establishes a new designation: “State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention.”
The executive order grants the Secretary of State the authority to designate any foreign country that engages in, or supports, the wrongful detention of a U.S. national. The criteria for this designation include a country’s failure to release a wrongfully detained American after being notified by the U.S. government, or if the country’s actions demonstrate a pattern of unjustly detaining individuals, including third-country nationals.
Upon designation, the U.S. can deploy a range of existing tools to impose consequences on the offending country. These measures, outlined in the executive order, are designed to deter and respond to wrongful detentions.
They include:
- Economic sanctions under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
- Travel restrictions for U.S. passport holders, prohibiting travel to the designated country.
- Restrictions on foreign aid provided to the country’s government.
- Export controls on certain goods.
- Visa restrictions for individuals and officials involved in the wrongful detentions.
The order is modeled after the “State Sponsor of Terrorism” designation, which carries severe penalties and is intended to be a powerful deterrent. According to the administration, no nation would want to be on this new list.
Senior administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, indicated that countries like China, Iran, Russia, and Afghanistan could be reviewed under the new policy. The executive order also specifies that the designation can be applied to entities that control significant territory, even if they are not officially recognized as a government. This measure is aimed at addressing wrongful detentions by non-state actors.
The executive order builds on the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, passed during Trump’s first term.
The Levinson Act authorizes the State Department to determine if a U.S. national has been wrongfully detained, a key prerequisite for the new designation. The President has made bringing home Americans who are jailed abroad a major focus of his second term, with the administration claiming to have secured the release of 72 detained Americans since January 20.
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