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Sanctions in sentence

2229 examples of Sanctions in a sentence

Economic sanctions may seem like a simple and inexpensive way to register disapproval for foreign hacking; in Russia’s case, existing sanctions against its largest banks and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest associates could be tightened.
But resorting to sanctions too frequently can have far-reaching consequences that eventually diminish the US’s role in the global economy.
So, America’s most powerful sanctions instrument is its ability to block a criminal or rogue bank from making US-dollar transactions.
But every time the US unilaterally tightens sanctions against another country, it risks undermining the dollar’s status as the world’s principal reserve currency, which could also make future sanctions less effective.
But when sanctions target a country, their effectiveness depends much more on other countries’ participation, which can cost political capital to secure.
For example, US sanctions eventually brought Iran to the table to negotiate a nuclear deal; but sanctions were effective only because a broad international coalition, ultimately backed by the United Nations Security Council, isolated Iran financially.
US sanctions against Russia after the latter’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 were amplified by a coincidental oil-price drop, and by the deployment of similar measures by the European Union, Russia’s largest trading partner.
Without EU participation, US sanctions would have been far less effective.
But, while international coalitions lend credibility to US sanctions, they are fragile and temporary at best.
Likewise, European leaders must renew their sanctions against Russia every six months, which means they are unlikely to survive long enough to change Kremlin policy.
Notwithstanding Trump’s evident rapport with Putin, US sanctions will be far more durable.
Beyond building sanctions coalitions, the US must ensure that it is using its disproportionate influence in the global financial system to advance truly global interests.
And while using financial sanctions to boost widely agreed global efforts such as nuclear nonproliferation, or to defend shared principles such as border sovereignty, may not always work, it is a widely accepted tactic.
For example, there was little sympathy for North Korea when Obama imposed sanctions against it last year in response to cyber attacks against Sony Pictures.
But there were grumbles about American overreach when the US slapped the French bank BNP Paribas with an $8.9 billion fine in 2014, and temporarily denied it certain dollar transactions, for violating sanctions against Sudan, Iran, and Cuba.
Would the US respond with sanctions if the cyber attack on Sony had come from a foreign competitor in a commercial dispute?
Imposing sanctions seems like an easy, costless response to a global outrage, but it is no such thing.
The US should scrutinize each sanctions deployment carefully, and make sure it is reinforcing trust in American leadership – and in the dollar – rather than raising doubts.
One of two things will happen: either tighter containment of Iran through sanctions on oil exports will produce positive results and weaken Iran, or containment will fail, leading the US inexorably toward a new war in the Middle East.
The risk is that when the American withdrawal from Afghanistan begins – a process that has just been brought forward to next year, from 2014 – the US will again seek to impose sanctions on Pakistan, an unreliable nuclear state that will react by strengthening ties with China and deploying Islamist terrorism.
The US imposed a tightening noose of trade and financial sanctions on the regime.
The power of such an approach can be seen in Russia, where Western sanctions, imposed following Putin’s annexation of Crimea, are the main factor limiting the pro-Russian rebels’ incursion in eastern Ukraine.
Pakistan is worth invoking when assessing whether the sanctions now imposed on Iran will force it to surrender its nuclear program.
Social unrest has been building up in Iran for years, and certainly began well before the West became serious about imposing economic and financial sanctions.
The sanctions against Iran have undoubtedly bitten hard.
Yet, however crippling the effect of sanctions might be, they will not bring the regime to surrender its nuclear program.
The most for which one can hope is that sanctions enhance the chances of regime change by reawakening popular protest, thereby triggering an Iranian version of the Arab Spring.
Alas, one cannot rule out a scenario in which nothing – diplomacy, sanctions, or the push for a regime change – works.
PARIS – Squeezed by low oil prices and Western sanctions, Russia’s fiscal position is crumbling fast, forcing the government to take increasingly drastic measures to contain the budget deficit’s growth.
Another feature of the economic environment that could undermine revenues is the sanctions that the United States and Europe have imposed on Russia – sanctions that could be tightened if hostilities escalate.
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