What explains this popularity? Sanctions can offer what appears to be a proportional response to a challenge in which the interests at stake are less than vital. To accomplish foreign policy ends, sanctions take the form of arms embargoes, foreign assistance reductions and cut-offs, export and import limitations, asset freezes, tariff increases, revocation of most favored nation (MFN) trade status, negative votes in international financial institutions, withdrawal of diplomatic relations, visa denials, cancellation of air links, and prohibitions on credit, financing, and investment. Sanctions-defined as mostly economic but also political and military penalties introduced to alter political and/or military behavior-are employed by the United States to discourage the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles, bolster human rights, end terrorism, thwart drug trafficking, discourage armed aggression, promote market access, protect the environment, and replace governments. What is critical, moreover, is not just the frequency with which economic sanctions are used but their growing importance for U.S. The United States now maintains economic sanctions against dozens of countries indeed, sanctions are so popular that they are being introduced by many states and municipalities. At the same time, economic sanctions are fast becoming the policy tool of choice for the United States in the post-cold war world. Sanctions are frequently criticized, even derided. The widespread use of economic sanctions constitutes one of the paradoxes of contemporary American foreign policy. Congress and the executive branch need to institute far more rigorous oversight of sanctions, both prior to adopting them and regularly thereafter, to ensure that the expected benefits outweigh likely costs and that sanctions accomplish more than alternative foreign policy tools. As a rule, sanctions need to be less unilateral and more focused on the problem at hand. preferences that hurt American economic interests without changing the target’s behavior for the better. Yet all too often sanctions turn out to be little more than expressions of U.S.
Economic sanctions are increasingly being used to promote the full range of American foreign policy objectives.
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