SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘North Korea State 
Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act of 2017’’. 
SEC. 2. REPORT ON DESIGNATION OF GOVERNMENT OF 
NORTH KOREA AS A STATE SPONSOR OF TER-
RORISM. 
(a) FINDINGS.—Congress finds the following: 
(1) The United States Government designated 
the Government of North Korea a state sponsor of 
terrorism on January 20, 1988. 
(2) On October 11, 2008, North Korea’s des-
ignation as a state sponsor of terrorism was re-
scinded, following commitments by the Government 
of North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons 
program. However, North Korea has failed to live up 
to these commitments. 
(3) On October 22, 2015, the United States 
Special Representative for North Korea Policy with 
the Department of State, testified before the House 
Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-
proliferation, and Trade that North Korea’s ‘‘con-
duct poses a growing threat to the United States, 
our friends in the region, and the global non-
proliferation regime’’ and the Deputy Coordinator 
for Homeland Security, Screening, and Designations 
with the U.S. Department of State noted that
‘‘weapons transfers that violate nonproliferation or 
missile control regimes could be a relevant factor for 
consideration, depending on the circumstances, con-
sistent with the statutory criteria for designation as 
a state sponsor of terrorism’’. 
(4) The Government of North Korea has har-
bored members of the Japanese Red Army since a 
1970 hijacking and continues to harbor the sur-
viving hijackers to this day. 
(5) On July 16, 2010, in the case of Calderon- 
Cardona v. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 
(case number 08–01367), the United States District 
Court for the District of Puerto Rico found that the 
Government of North Korea provided material sup-
port to the Japanese Red Army, designated as a for-
eign terrorist organization between 1997 and 2001, 
in furtherance of a 1972 terrorist attack at Lod Air-
port, Israel that killed 26 people, including 17 
Americans. 
(6) In the case of Chaim Kaplan v. Hezbollah 
(case number 09–646), a United States district 
court found in 2014 that North Korea materially 
supported terrorist attacks by Hezbollah, a des-
ignated foreign terrorist organization, against Israel 
in 2006.
(7) In June 2010, Major Kim Myong-ho and 
Major Dong Myong-gwan of North Korea’s Recon-
naissance General Bureau pled guilty in a South Ko-
rean court to attempting to assassinate Hwang 
Jang-yop, a North Korean dissident in exile, on the 
orders of Lieutenant General Kim Yong-chol, the 
head of North Korea’s Reconnaissance General Bu-
reau. The court sentenced each defendant to 10 
years in prison. 
(8) In March 2015, the Government of South 
Korea concluded that North Korea was responsible 
for a December 2014 cyber attack against multiple 
nuclear power plants in South Korea. The South 
Korean Government stated that the attacks were in-
tended to cause a malfunction at the plants’ reac-
tors, and described the attacks as acts of ‘‘cyber-ter-
ror targeting our country’’. 
(9) On December 19, 2015, the Federal Bureau 
of Investigation (FBI) concluded that North Korea 
was responsible for a cyber attack on Sony Pictures 
Entertainment and a subsequent threat of violence 
against theaters that showed the film ‘‘The Inter-
view’’. The FBI concluded that the ‘‘Guardians of 
Peace’’, which sent the threat to Sony Pictures En-
tertainment, was a unit of North Korea’s Reconnais-
sance General Bureau, its foreign intelligence serv-
ice. 
(10) Malaysian authorities have alleged that of-
ficials from North Korea’s secret police and Foreign 
Ministry were involved in the poisoning and killing 
of the estranged half-brother of the country’s leader, 
Kim Jong-nam, using the chemical weapon VX 
nerve agent, a substance banned for use as a weapon 
by the United Nations Chemical Weapons Conven-
tion, on February 13, 2017, in Kuala Lumpur. 
(b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of the 
Congress that the Government of North Korea likely 
meets the criteria for designation as a state sponsor of 
terrorism and, if so should be so designated. 
(c) DETERMINATION.—Not later than 90 days after 
the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of 
State shall submit to the appropriate congressional com-
mittees a determination as to whether the Government of 
North Korea meets the criteria for designation as a state 
sponsor of terrorism. 
(d) FORM.—The determination required by sub-
section (c) shall be submitted in unclassified form, but 
may include a classified annex, if appropriate. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
In this Act:
(1) APPROPRIATE
CONGRESSIONAL
COMMIT-
TEES.—The term ‘‘appropriate congressional com-
mittees’’ means— 
(A) the Committee on Foreign Relations of 
the Senate; and 
(B) the Committee on Foreign Affairs of 
the House of Representatives. 
(2) NORTH KOREA.—The term ‘‘North Korea’’ 
means the Government of the Democratic People’s 
Republic of Korea. 
(3) STATE SPONSOR OF TERRORISM.—The term 
‘‘state sponsor of terrorism’’ means a country the 
government of which the Secretary of State has de-
termined, for purposes of section 6(j) of the Export 
Administration Act of 1979 (50 U.S.C. 4605(j)) (as 
in effect pursuant to the International Emergency 
Economic Powers Act), section 620A of the Foreign 
Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2371), section 40 
of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2780), 
or any other provision of law, is a government that