WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush vowed on Thursday to uphold U.S. law and continue a crackdown on North Korea for counterfeiting American dollar bills.

"There is no compromise ... We are going to uphold the law and protect the currency of the American people," he told a White House news conference.

The United States in recent months has cracked down on several firms and a Macau-based bank suspected of involvement in counterfeiting, money laundering and drug trafficking by North Korea.

Pyongyang is believed to earn as much as $1 billion annually from these activities, which U.S. officials say benefit the elite at the expense of an impoverished population.

The communist state has said it would be unthinkable to return to six-country nuclear talks, led by China and stalled since November, when Washington is trying to bring down its rulers with "financial sanctions."

While Bush showed no give on the crackdown on the North"s suspected illicit activities, he reaffirmed that "we want the six party talks to continue ... I think the framework is a framework that can eventually yield to a political settlement of the issue."