United States sanctions
trade restrictions levied by the United States government
The United States took little interest in imposing embargoes and economic sanctions against foreign countries until the 20th century. United States trade policy was entirely a matter of economic policy. In 1940, the United States participated in international sanctions that forbade export of strategic commodities. Interest in the trade as a tool of foreign policy expanded during the Cold War era, and many economic sanctions were applied. Later, sanctions were additionally aimed against countries which the U.S. government listed as "State Sponsors of Terrorism".
QuotesEdit
AEdit
- If you isolate a country, you isolate yourself, as the United States, from being influential and effective in the course of events, unless you are talking about the negative influence, like making the embargo that could kill the people slowly, or launching a war and supporting terrorists that could kill them in a faster way.
- Bashar al-Assad, in Interview with the CBS News. 2015
- Iran has condemned new United States sanctions that punish any company that works with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, saying they were "cruel" and would exacerbate suffering in the war-torn country... "[Iran] does not respect such cruel and unilateral sanctions waged as bullying and considers them to be economic terrorism against the people of Syria," said foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi. The sanctions were "against international laws and human values..."he said in a statement....Hassan Nasrallah, head of Lebanon's Hezbollah, also condemned the new US sanctions. "The Caesar Act aims to starve Lebanon just as it aims to starve Syria," Nasrallah said... "Syria has won the war ... militarily, in security terms and politically," he added, describing the Caesar Act as Washington's "last weapon" against Damascus.
BEdit
- As we chant “Black Lives Matter”, let's include the lives of people of color dying from US sanctions in Venezuela, being blown up by US bombs in Yemen and Afghanistan, and being tear-gassed, beaten and shot in Palestine with US weapons.
- Medea Benjamin Twitter (9 June 2020)
- Webinar today: From North Korea to Venezuela to Iran, US sanctions disproportionately impact women....Tune in today at 11 am ET
- Medea Benjamin Twitter (16 June 2020)
- The UN Secretary General and the European Union have also both called for a suspension of the economic warfare that the US wages against other countries through unilateral coercive sanctions. Countries under unilateral US sanctions include Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, North Korea, Russia, Sudan, Syria and Zimbabwe.
In his update on April 3rd, Guterres showed that he was taking his ceasefire call seriously, insisting on actual ceasefires, not just feel-good declarations. "…There is a huge distance between declarations and deeds," Guterres said. His original plea to "put armed conflict on lockdown" explicitly called on warring parties everywhere to "silence the guns, stop the artillery, end the airstrikes," not just to say that they would like to, or that they’ll consider it if their enemies do it first.
- The United States does not just wage war on children with bombs, missiles, and bullets. It also wages economic war in ways that disproportionately affect children, preventing countries like Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea from importing essential food and medicines or obtaining the resources they need to buy them. These sanctions are a brutal form of economic warfare and collective punishment that leave children dying from hunger and preventable diseases, especially during this pandemic. U.N. officials have called for the International Criminal Court to investigate unilateral U.S. sanctions as crimes against humanity. The Biden Administration should immediately lift all unilateral economic sanctions. Will President Joe Biden act to protect the children of the world from America’s most tragic and indefensible war crimes? Nothing in his long record in public life suggests that he will, unless the American public, and the rest of the world, act collectively and effectively to insist that America must end its war on children and finally become a responsible, law-abiding member of the human family.
- Medea Benjamin, Biden Must End the War on Kids, by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, The Progressive, (28 January 2021)
- Latin America is not the same Latin America... the only country who vote against stopping the embargo, eliminating the embargo in the U.N. is United States and Israel. The world already has said that they don’t agree with the embargo against Cuba. I also think that — we mentioned Hugo Chávez. Hugo Chávez, Lula in Brazil, Correa in Ecuador have shifted this concept that Latin America is just a backyard of the United States, creating a new regional policy. And with that regionalization, both for TeleSUR—there are like four or five different organizations been created that allow Latin Americans to do more work among themselves, both economically and politically, including resolving some of the political issues within our region.
I also think it’s significant that when we talk about the U.S. arresting Noriega, that it comes off like the U.S. role has been to protect citizens from dictators. Every dictator that served the U.S., that was overthrown by their people, was protected by the U.S. Stroessner was taken to Brazil after he was overthrown. He was the most longest in power.
CEdit
- If we're leaving our fate to sociopathic buffoons, we're finished... you don't see that when the U.S. imposes sanctions, murderous, devastating sanctions, that's the only country that can do that, but everyone has to follow. Europe may not like, in fact hate actions on Iran, but they have to follow, they have to follow the master, or else they get kicked out of the international financial system. That's not a law of nature, it's a decision in Europe to be subordinate to the master in Washington. Other countries don't even have a choice.... And back to the coronavirus, one of the most shocking harsh aspects of it, is the use of sanctions, to maximize the pain, perfectly consciously, Iran is in a zone, enormous internal problems by the stranglehold of tightening sanctions, which are consciously designed to make them suffer and suffer bitterly. All words fail, just as when you see thousands of people dying in the Mediterranean, fleeing from a region that has been devastated... and being sent to the deaths in the Mediterranean, you don't know what words to use.
The Crisis, the civilizational crisis of the West at this point is devastating... it does bring up childhood memories of listening to Hitler raving on the radio to raucous crowds... it makes you wonder if this species is even viable.
- US national security adviser John Bolton announced... that the US will use "any means necessary" to protect its citizens and allies from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. "United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court."... Bolton blasted the ICC as “ineffective, unaccountable,” “outright dangerous” and “contrary to American principles,” and said the US “would respond against the ICC and its personnel to the extent permitted by US law... We will ban its financial system and we will prosecute them in the US criminal system. We will do the same for any company or state that assists an ICC investigation of Americans,” said Bolton, a former ambassador to the UN. Bolton said the US would “take note” of other countries’ cooperation with the ICC and “will remember that cooperation when settling US foreign assistance, military assistance, and intelligence sharing levels.”
FEdit
- President Trump strengthened the 60-year US blockade against my country, implementing 90 economic measures against Cuba between January 2019 and March 2020 alone. These measures have targeted the main sectors of the Cuban economy, including our financial transactions, tourism industry, energy sector, foreign investments - which are key for the development of the Cuban economy - and the medical cooperation programmes with other countries. These unilateral coercive measures are unprecedented in their level of aggression and scope... stopping Cuba from getting much-needed medical supplies... the US has imposed restrictions on banks, airlines and shipping companies to stop Cuba from receiving materials that other countries are donating or sending to Cuba.
- In April, the Alibaba Foundation of China tried to donate masks, rapid diagnostic kits and ventilators to Cuba, but the airline contracted by Alibaba to transport those items to Cuba refused to take the goods because they were afraid the US would sanction them. A ship recently arrived in Cuba with raw materials to produce medications but it decided not to unload... out of fear it would be sanctioned by the US government. So this is why we say we are suffering from two pandemics: COVID-19 and the US blockade. For that reason, it is so important that people of goodwill around the world continue to raise the demand to end the blockade of Cuba and to forcefully assert that these are times for solidarity and cooperation, not sanctions and blockades.
KEdit
- For far too long, American politicians have been sanctions-crazed.... Last month, the Trump administration sanctioned Mexican companies for seeking to supply food to Venezuela.... Three senators introduced a bill designed to punish countries that accept help from Cuban doctors, which would include Italy, Ukraine, Jamaica, and South Africa.... Leaders of countries suddenly facing the threat of punishment for accepting Cuban doctors have reacted with anger and incredulity... it would leave more than 50 countries with the choice of either expelling Cuban doctors at a moment of global pandemic or facing American opprobrium. The prime minister of tiny Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, protested that his country relies on Cuban doctors and pointedly added, “Those who would like us to do otherwise should undertake to fill the breach.” ...Most remarkably, Congress is moving to sanction Germany, a major ally for generations, because it is building a gas pipeline to Russia.
- Cuba, along with China, is sending doctors and supplies to a number of countries around the world to help them fight the pandemic... Washington is demonstrating the very opposite... removing all of its Peace Corps staff from around the world, and, even worse, increasing sanctions against countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Nicaragua during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is accurate to say that the U.S. is weaponizing the virus against these countries...
As a number of religious scholars have warned, “plagues expose the foundations of injustice” in our societies. The current pandemic is exposing not only our government’s utter failures to protect its own citizens, but also its profound lack of human decency in dealing with other nations
- For far too long, American politicians have been sanctions-crazed.... Last month, the Trump administration sanctioned Mexican companies for seeking to supply food to Venezuela.... Three senators introduced a bill designed to punish countries that accept help from Cuban doctors, which would include Italy, Ukraine, Jamaica, and South Africa.... Leaders of countries suddenly facing the threat of punishment for accepting Cuban doctors have reacted with anger and incredulity... it would leave more than 50 countries with the choice of either expelling Cuban doctors at a moment of global pandemic or facing American opprobrium. The prime minister of tiny Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, protested that his country relies on Cuban doctors and pointedly added, “Those who would like us to do otherwise should undertake to fill the breach.” ...Most remarkably, Congress is moving to sanction Germany, a major ally for generations, because it is building a gas pipeline to Russia.
- Cuba, along with China, is sending doctors and supplies to a number of countries around the world to help them fight the pandemic... Washington is demonstrating the very opposite... removing all of its Peace Corps staff from around the world, and, even worse, increasing sanctions against countries like Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and Nicaragua during the height of the COVID-19 outbreak. It is accurate to say that the U.S. is weaponizing the virus against these countries...
As a number of religious scholars have warned, “plagues expose the foundations of injustice” in our societies. The current pandemic is exposing not only our government’s utter failures to protect its own citizens, but also its profound lack of human decency in dealing with other nations
- Some of the wars America fought were "simply for profit" and the sanctions it has imposed on certain countries have been as destructive as wars... The American people have virtually no say over when we go to war. These decisions are made in back rooms somewhere...The American people continue to be lied to about why we go to war, because again, one of the big reasons is simply for profit, and that's always been true to some extent, but now it is in a very naked way.
- [On the U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan] From a strategic point of view, it has to be seen as a complete failure, and yet it went on for 20 years, why did it go on for 20 years? Because the defense industry companies that make the bombs, that make the planes, that make the vehicles, and also the private military contractors that now are fighting the wars in lieu of public military personnel, they made trillions of dollars as long as the war continued. So they didn't care if the war was ever won, the goal was for the war to simply continue forever... the point is not to win the war, but to make sure it never ends because you're going to keep making profits.
The U.S. is not advancing human rights through its military interventions. It's not advancing humanitarianism. In fact, it's undermining it in a huge way.
- ..in terms of the damage, sanctions and wars do deliver similar results... They do deliver death. They do deliver destruction of infrastructure, in the same way, that bombs and bullets do...If we can't just overthrow you, we will destroy you, and that's what the U.S. has done time and again. The sanctions... have also prevented Venezuela, which has the world's largest proven oil reserve, from maintaining its oil industry and maintaining its power grids... Sanction is war by another means...You're just denying the people the economic benefits of their industries, and also, again, you're denying them electricity, other infrastructure, again in much the same way that you could or would through actual military means...However, most Americans don't see sanctions as war and they don't know the consequences so they tolerate it more and think the sanctions are somehow a legitimate form of coercion...When you look at the results, they're the same or similar to actual military warfare, but again, there are means that are more clandestine and do create more consent amongst the population of the Western world that might otherwise protest it," he concluded.
- Daniel Kovalik interviewed in Interview: Some American wars fought "simply for profit," sanctions also destructive, human rights lawyer says, Xinhua, (December 8, 2021)
- Sanctioning Venezuela's nationalized oil industry, which supports the Maduro regime, or limiting Iran's access to international financial institutions to discourage nuclear weapons development may sound like straightforward ways to coerce bad actors in these two countries without harming civilians. But the reality of sanctions isn't that simple. They're often unintentionally inhumane and rarely effective. Sanctions may be a lesser evil than war, but that does not mean they cannot be cruel.
LEdit
- Collective punishment of entire nations is immoral and wrong... Collective punishment can cause the people targeted by it to become more nationalistic, and in countries with a strong nationalist tradition this is even more likely.... When the U.S. government is seeking to make them miserable and poor, Iranians are unlikely to take enormous risks to do Washington’s bidding by toppling their own government. The overuse of sanctions is itself an abuse of power... The impulse to sanction one country after another is the same impulse behind wanting to “do something” militarily against this or that regime: we do it because we can and because we think we have the right to do whatever we want to others. The same arrogance and the same contempt for the sovereignty of other nations are on display. We should be opposed to the interventionists that want to use American military power to cause unnecessary death and destruction in other parts of the world, and in the same way we should reject the capricious and cruel use of economic sanctions to inflict misery and suffering on tens of millions of innocent people.
OEdit
- Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba... the United States has supported democracy and human rights in Cuba... primarily through policies that aimed to isolate the island, preventing the most basic travel and commerce that Americans can enjoy anyplace else. And though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions, and it has had little effect beyond providing the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people... Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe. So I’ve authorized increased telecommunications connections between the United States and Cuba. Businesses will be able to sell goods that enable Cubans to communicate with the United States and other countries... we should not allow U.S. sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens that we seek to help.
- Barack Obama, "Statement by the President on Cuba Policy Change" (17 December 2014)
PEdit
- The United States, Arreaza told me, “has gone to the extent of carrying out modern acts of piracy, stopping ships in the middle of the ocean and stealing cargo that was paid for by the Venezuelan people.” Not only has the United States tried to blockade Venezuela, but it continues to interfere in Venezuela’s political affairs; this includes trying to undermine the legislative elections that will be held on December 6.... China has largely disregarded the U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, which is the largest recipient of Chinese loans. “When China states that it will continue to trade with Venezuela,” Arreaza told me, “it is standing against the illegality of the U.S. coercive measures that are placed on Venezuela.” Venezuela’s difficulty in servicing the debt to China is seen in Beijing as the fault of the illegal sanctions regime, which has made normal economic activity impossible; China’s “patient capital” strategy and its understanding of the geopolitical pressure on Venezuela are key to understanding its relationship.
SEdit
- Since the start of the great recession in 2008 the U.S. has become increasingly dependent on the use of unilateral economic sanctions to achieve its policy objectives against its declared targets. Presently, sanctions impact one-third of humanity in 39 countries. Economic sanctions not only cause untold death and devastation to a given country by denying it access to U.S.-dominated markets—which restricts its ability to generate wealth, stabilize its currency against price fluctuations and provide critical services and resources for its people—but economic sanctions also serve to justify and conceal theft, through asset freezes and seizures, at a rate only previously accomplished through invasion and occupation. The victims of economic sanctions are easy to identify because they are visible—there are dead bodies and malnourished children, with stunted growth and development, in once-thriving communities. They constitute the underemployed and working-class and are predominately people of color.
- When analysis is done to uncover the big winners of U.S. economic sanctions it is learned that ExxonMobil and JP Morgan Chase Bank are often front and center; case in point, Iran, Iraq, and Venezuela. Also, consider that JP Morgan Chase Bank did very well in the 2008 collapse through vulture capitalism. Fortunately, U.S. economic sanctions contain the seeds of their own undoing, since they engender the expansion of foreign reserve currencies at the expense of the U.S. dollar, and the phasing out of the U.S. money transfer system (SWIFT) to alternate foreign models such as Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).... Since millions of lives are at stake now, it is imperative that secondary sanctioned countries, business owners, workers, and elected officials join together with sanctioned countries and peace activists to end economic sanctions. The oligarchy must be stopped from literally stealing the wealth of the world.
UEdit
- Independent UN rights experts on Wednesday warned that hundreds of Venezuelan cancer patients could die because they have been caught up in the excessively strict application of United States sanctions aimed at Venezuela and the state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela. “The lives of Venezuelan transplant patients who are stranded in foreign countries, as well as those waiting to travel abroad for live-saving operations are under threat,” the experts said. “A trip abroad for treatment has become the only hope for hundreds of critically ill patients.” The group of Special Rapporteurs said they had alerted the US Government, and other countries and entities with a stake in the situation, calling on them to “mitigate the unexpected consequences of sanctions, and reinstate treatment for people whose lives now are in danger. They must take full responsibility for the effect their actions have on the fundamental rights to life and health of every individual around the world.”
The experts say that third countries, regional groupings, banks and private companies have been overly cautious in dealings with Venezuela, fearing that they might unintentionally violate US sanctions, placed on some individual Venezuelans and Government assets in 2015, and 2019. As a consequence, money cannot be transferred out of Venezuela, and some patients have been stranded, or made destitute, in countries where they went for treatment, the experts said. Under the 2019 sanctions, all Venezuelan State assets were frozen in the US, and all transactions with US citizens and companies outlawed.
- Unilateral coercive measures by some governments are denying many people around the world the right to personal development, as well as holding back sustainable national development, four independent UN human rights experts said on Wednesday... For example, when sanctions imposed by the United States block teleconferencing and data services in countries, people are cut off from webinars and online meetings for information, exchanges, education and training, and doctors cannot consult medical data bases, the experts continued.
- United Nations News Punishment of ‘innocent civilians’ through government sanctions must end: UN experts (11 August 2021)
VEdit
- Veterans For Peace is outraged at the unfolding coup d’etat in Venezuela, which is clearly being orchestrated by the U.S. government. Two hundred years of blatant U.S. intervention in Latin America must come to an end... Years of increasingly crippling U.S. sanctions have succeeded in destabilizing the Venezuelan economy and created great unrest, division and migration. The U.S. government encouraged Venezuelan opposition parties to boycott last year’s election. Now they are calling the election fraudulent, and attempting to install a little-known politician more to their liking. This is part of a dangerous game that the U.S. continues to play throughout Latin America.
