President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday establishing a "state sponsor of wrongful detention" designation, a move designed to put pressure on countries that illegally detain Americans.
The executive order will give Secretary of State Marco Rubio the ability to impose sanctions on designated countries or order other punishments, according to a senior administration official.
“We are drawing a very clear delineation today, a line in the sand," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to brief reporters ahead of the announcement. "You will not use Americans as bargaining chips.”
The official declined to say how quickly the Trump administration would issue sanctions or visa restrictions against those offending countries. The details on the number and locations of Americans being held abroad are not publicized by the U.S. government. But according to the Foley Foundation’s 2024 report, the total number of Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained was at least 54 across 17 countries, including Iran, China, Russia, North Korea and Venezuela.
Paul Whelan, who was wrongfully held in Russia for more than five years before being released in 2024, said the executive order is “a good start and would be a powerful deterrent if truly enforced against rogue regimes such as China and Russia.”
Whelan said he believes Trump should also secure compensation for those truly wrongfully detained and use frozen assets from the rogue regimes for that purpose.
“We need to deter the taking of hostages and ensure that once home, hostages are taken care of properly,” Whelan told NBC News. “The U.S. government could do much better in both regards.”
A similar executive order was issued by the Biden administration in July 2022 declaring the wrongful detention and hostage-taking of Americans a national emergency. Under that order, visa bans and sanctions could also be issued against associated individuals and actors. At the time, the State Department also moved to call out offending countries, issuing a special indicator on travel advisories – the letter D – to warn Americans from traveling to them.
Under the Trump administration’s executive order, countries could also face penalties for supporting non-state actors or terrorist groups who hold Americans hostage within their borders.
“Everything changes with regards to rogue regimes and regimes who think Americans can be treated as pawns,” the senior administration official said.
A second senior administration official said the order will allow the administration to impose on designated countries the same measures it can bring against state sponsors of terrorism.
"It’s a widening of the aperture against whom we can use those tool," the second official said. "You don’t have to be funding Hamas, Hezbollah or Al Qaeda. You can simply be trying to exploit our citizens wrongfully.”
As part of its broader deterrence efforts, the Trump administration is also considering restricting Americans travel to certain countries, the officials said. Similar measures were undertaken by the Trump administration in 2017 when U.S. passport holders were banned from traveling to North Korea after the death of U.S. citizen Otto Warmbier.
