SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Friday that American-led international sanctions were causing “colossal” damage in the impoverished country, but added that it would be foolish for Washington to think the sanctions would stop the country’s nuclear weapons programs.

North Korean officials recently set up a committee to investigate the damage that the sanctions have caused on the country’s economy and the well-being of the population. The committee’s work was designed to draw international sympathy by highlighting the suffering of North Korean children, women and elderly people, analysts said.

The sanctions are “a brutal criminal act that indiscriminately infringes upon the right to existence of the peaceful civilians,” said a spokesman of the Sanctions Damage Investigation Committee in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Friday. “The colossal amount of damage caused by these sanctions to the development of our state and the people’s livelihood is beyond anyone’s calculation.”

The North Korean statement came after President Trump’s executive order last week, which strengthened his administration’s authority to target foreign banks that facilitate trade with North Korea. On Tuesday, the United States added eight North Korean banks to its sanctions blacklist.