It made a lot of news when the military leaders of Myanmar released Aung San Suu Kyi, and made some initial steps towards democracy. So much so, that governments around the world made signfiicant reductions in the sanctions placed on the government. There was even a news story about how the US had been having secret talks with the government, and had held off adding additional names to the SDN List, all in the hopes of incentivizing progress on democratic reforms.
Then, all of a sudden, OFAC actually added to the Burmese sanctions list last week! What gives?
This is a classic example of how sanctions works. Do something nice (release political prisoner), get rewarded. Do something bad (trade arms with North Korea), get punished.
You can read some important nuances into how this was handled. First, only one individual and 3 entities were added. It's highly unlikely these are the only folks implicated in the arms trade – OFAC was sending a warning shot over Yangon's bow to cut it out before all the progress that has been made this year is lost.
Secondly, these new listings were made under the Burmese program – and announced as such. The OFAC website didn't list these under the North Korean sanctions. And, yet, similar relationships are laid out closer to home – Machine Metals Engineering's involvement with the Iranian regime is listed under the Iran program (it's a German firm), for example. As such, it was a warning to the ruling junta that what Washington giveth, it can taketh away. And that the assumption was that the trading with North Korea was condoned, if it promulgated by, the government, not private interests – and that the government would be held accountable for the actions.