Economic Sanctions

Economic sanctions have become a policy tool of choice for the US government to punish illegal activity by international actors or to push governments to reverse actions that damage US interests. Yet sanctions and their potential pitfalls are often misunderstood. Sanctions can play an important role in advancing some policy objectives, but can be ineffective if misused or improperly implemented. Policy makers must also understand the impact of economic statecraft on the private sector, which bears many of the implementation costs of sanctions.