Officials of the Sheraton Hotel might be experiencing some sleepless nights as a result of what they recently did at the Winter Olympics in South Korea. A five-star Sheraton Hotel permitted Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, to stay there during her official visit to the Olympic Games. If they did that without the permission of U.S. officials, they might just find themselves the targets of severe punishment at the hands of U.S. bureaucrats.

Why might that incur the ire of U.S. officials? Because U.S. officials have Kim Yo Jong on their list of North Koreans specifically targeted for U.S. sanctions. If the Sheraton permitted her to stay there without securing the permission of U.S. officials, they might soon find that U.S. officials can be as vicious as their North Korean counterparts.

Just ask Bert Sacks, the American citizen from Washington State who dared to violate U.S. sanctions against the Iraqi people. Horrified by the high death toll among Iraqi children from the sanctions, Sachs decided to take medicines into Iraq knowing full well that he was violating the sanctions. U.S. officials went after him with a vengeance that bordered on the pathological. Fining him $10,000 for daring to violate their sacred sanctions, a fine that Sachs refused to pay, U.S. officials pursued him for more than a decade in their attempt to collect not just the fine but also extremely high penalties and interest. (For more on the remarkable story of Sack’s heroic resistance to the U.S. sanctions on the Iraqi people, see here.)

It’s what they do to anyone who dares to violate their sacred sanctions. That’s why even big and powerful international businessmen quiver and quake whenever they are faced with the possibility that they are violating U.S. sanctions. They know what U.S. officials will do them if they violate them.

Read more at The Future of Freedom Foundation.