The United States had already suspended the plan to deliver 240,000 metric tonnes of assistance aimed at children and pregnant women as North Korea prepared what the government called an unsuccessful bid to put a satellite in orbit.
The US government, which had been fine-tuning the aid package for months before finally announcing it on February 29, said that it would be "impossible" to move forward with it after the rocket launch. The US considers the launch to have been a veiled missile test.
Barack Obama, the US president, said that he was deeply concerned by the rocket launch, which violated UN Security Council resolutions, although he noted that "they've been trying to launch missiles like this for over a decade now and they don't seem to be real good at it".
Asked if the food aid cut-off was permanent, Mark Toner, the US state department's spokesperson, said that the US could no longer "frankly trust the North Koreans that this will end up in appropriate hands".
He also said that additional sanctions could be put into place following the launch.
