The United States is sanctioning 271 Syrians connected to the chemical weapons attack ordered by Syrian President Bashar Assad on his own people earlier this month.

During Monday's White House press briefing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the doubling of the amount of Syrians sanctioned by the United States in response to the chemical weapons attack. Mnuchin said in a statement the sanctions target employees of Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Center.

"These sweeping sanctions target the scientific support center for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's horrific chemical weapons attack on innocent civilian men, women, and children," Mnuchin said. "The United States is sending a strong message with this action that we will hold the entire Assad regime accountable for these blatant human rights violations in order to deter the spread of these types of barbaric chemical weapons."

"We take Syria's disregard for innocent human life very seriously, and will relentlessly pursue and shut down the financial networks of all individuals involved with the production of chemical weapons used to commit these atrocities," he said.

It's the second time this year the U.S. government has sanctioned officials in the Syrian regime. In January, under President Obama, Treasury sanctioned 18 regime officials and five branches of the Syrian military.

The actual impact of these sanctions remains to be seen; Mnuchin declined to answer how many of these Syrians are actually doing business with companies in the United States.

"We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think it would be impactful and it's quite impactful," he said.