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The Sanctions Age is a podcast that explores how sanctions are changing the world.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Department of Treasury had imposed sanctions on fewer than 1,000 companies and individuals. Today, more than 10,000 entities have been targeted.
Leaders around the world are imposing sanctions in response to wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, human rights violations, and technological competition. As a result, a growing list of countries are targeted by sanctions, export controls, and investment restrictions, including China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria.
The Sanctions Age invites the people who understand sanctions best—economists, historians, lawyers, policymakers, and journalists—to explain their use and significance. Understanding sanctions is the key to understanding politics and economics today.
We are living in The Sanctions Age.
21 Episodes
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Few companies better embody the promise and peril of China’s rise than Huawei. For nearly three decades, Huawei has steadily climbed towards the peak of the global telecommunications industry—first as a supplier of telecom infrastructure, then as a maker of smartphones, and more recently as a driving force behind Chinese ambitions in 5G, semiconductors, and artificial intelligence. Huawei’s ascent has also made it a prime target of U.S. sanctions, export controls, and political pressure. Sinc...
Last week, the host of The Sanctions Age, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, was interviewed by Derek Davison for an episode of American Prestige, a podcast that takes a comprehensive look at American foreign policy and international affairs. Derek and Esfandyar discussed the death of the Iran nuclear deal, which died last week after the triggering of the “snapback” mechanism and the reimposition of UN sanctions. They delved into Europe’s decision to pursue snapback and the factors that lead to the unr...
Few sanctions have been used as aggressively as oil sanctions. These measures are meant to hit oil producing “rogue states” where it hurts, starving governments of vital revenues and forcing changes in policy. But look around the world today and you will see a growing list of countries defying oil sanctions. Iran is still pumping. Russia is still exporting. Venezuela is still finding buyers. Oil sanctions were once thought to be the most powerful economic weapon in Washington’s arsenal. But G...
Russia is one of the world’s largest economies. It’s a top energy exporter and a major supplier of wheat, fertilizers, wood, and metals. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Western governments have tried to squeeze Russia’s revenues through unprecedented sanctions, price caps, and export controls. How Russia’s economy responds to war and sanctions doesn’t just matter for Moscow or Kyiv — it matters for the price of fuel in India, the cost of bread in Egypt, and the margins for factories in China. ...
The small Guatemalan town of El Estor was once a bustling mining hub, home to two major nickel mines that provided thousands of jobs and sustained the local government. In 2022, U.S. sanctions shuttered those mines almost overnight, triggering massive job losses, starving the town of public revenues, and collapsing small businesses. Families that had worked their way into the middle class were suddenly plunged into poverty, and many residents—facing few options—were forced to emigrate, settin...
On December 8, 2024, Bashar Al-Assad fled Syria, bringing an end to the 13-year civil war that had devastated the country. Syrians who had endured years of conflict and deprivation, took to the streets in celebration. They were suddenly able to imagine a new future for their country. Assad’s fall caught the international community by surprise, and policymakers in the region, in Europe, and in the United States were forced to adjust their policies, opening lines of communication to Syria’s new...
There is a powerful office in the Treasury Department called the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC. You could argue that the officials in OFAC are the most powerful government functionaries in the world. They are the functionaries who sanction companies, organizations, and individuals, by adding these entities to a list called the Specially Designated Nationals List, or SDN List for short. Today, there are over 17,000 designated entities. The list includes Iranian government ins...
Covering sanctions is complicated. Editors commissioning reports from countries like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela mainly want stories that focus on security or political issues, but on the ground, economic disruptions are what everyone is talking about. Foreign correspondents based in sanctioned countries are not just reporting on economic disruptions, they are experiencing them first-hand, contending with volatile markets, rising prices, product shortages, and a darkening mood. As economic pr...
Over the past several years, the United States has escalated its use of sanctions and export controls in the context of growing strategic competition with China. A central goal has been to contain China’s rise in high-tech industries—especially semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and clean energy—by cutting off access to advanced technology. This approach reflects a bipartisan consensus in Washington that restricting China’s access to innovation is key to preserving American technologica...
In the 1990s, UN sanctions imposed on Iraq led to a humanitarian crisis, with reports of a rapid increase in excess mortality, especially among children. In the early 2000s, policymakers responded to this crisis by vowing to use “smart sanctions” in the future, measures that would target elites while sparing civilians, thereby limiting the humanitarian harms of economic coercion. The perception that today’s sanctions are “smart” has contributed to the rapid increase in their use over the last...
Edward Fishman on Trump's approach to economic statecraft. The world is still reeling from Trump’s announcement of major retaliatory tariffs targeting all of America’s trading partners, which came back in April. First, Trump announced a basic 10% tariff on imports from all countries. Then, higher tariffs were applied to 60 countries. Soon after, Trump announced he would pause the implementation of the tariffs, except for the measures against China, which he escalated further. But then more ta...
Erica Moret on the humanitarian harms of sanctions. In just about every country that has been targeted by a major sanctions program—including Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few—we can observe significant humanitarian consequences. Sanctions contribute to shortages of essential goods, hinder access to healthcare, and exacerbate poverty and social instability. Understanding the humanitarian impact of sanctions is crucial for assessing their true cost and evaluating whether th...
Stephen Fallon on how American regulators captured global banks. US authorities have taken advantage of the unique position of the dollar in the global economy to exercise significant control over the global financial system. When the U.S. introduces new financial regulations or sanctions regimes, global banks take notice, and tend to modify their behaviors to conform with American guidance. Stephen Fallon has spent his whole career dealing with the exigencies of US financial regulations. I...
Gerard DiPippo on the intensifying economic competition between the United States and China. When the White House recently announced it would increase tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, it used striking language to explain why the measures were necessary. The White House statement claimed that “China’s unfair trade practices concerning technology transfer, intellectual property, and innovation are threatening American businesses and workers” and complained that “China is also flooding glob...
Henry Smith on how global CEOs are navigating the sanctions landscape. In recent decades, multinational companies have pursued market opportunities around the world, creating complex supply chains and financial structures in the process. But what was once a world of expanding opportunity is increasingly a world of encroaching risks. With sanctions and export controls imposed on a growing list of countries, including major economies like Iran and Russia, multinational companies have had to s...
Delaney Simon on the challenges of peacebuilding in the wake of sanctions. Sanctions are not meant to last forever. When diplomatic negotiations bring a dispute or conflict to an end, it may be time to lift sanctions imposed in response to that conflict. Unfortunately, sanctions can be difficult to lift, and they have lingering effects that can make it harder to build a durable peace after conflict. Delaney’s research has focused on the effects of sanctions on peacebuilding. She is a Senior...
Maximilian Hess and Nicholas Mulder on economic war and economic peace. Maximilian Hess and Nicholas Mulder have spent a lot of time thinking about economic weapons and economic war, especially in the context of Ukraine. Their writings have graced the pages of the New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. If there are trenches in economic wars, then Max and Nick two of the best correspondents writing with their boots in the metaphorical mud. Maximilian is the...
Javad Shamsi on how firms adapt to sanctions. The U.S. sanctions on Iran target sectors across the country’s economy, including the energy, manufacturing, and banking sectors. In addition, hundreds of Iranian companies have been designated, meaning they have been singled out with targeted sanctions. Despite this expansive sanctions regime, very few large enterprises in Iran have gone out of business, suggesting that managers at most companies found ways to adapt to sanctions pressure. Javad...
Daniel McDowell and Maria Shagina on how states evade and undermine sanctions. The stakes around sanctions circumvention have never been higher. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has made sanctions evasion a matter of life or death. Russia continues to use export revenues to fund its war economy, and, despite trade restrictions, Russian factories continue to churn out weapons using imported parts and machinery. Meanwhile, growing antagonism between China and the United States has spurred Chines...
Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman on weaponizing Interdependence in a globalized world. In 2019, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman published a paper titled “Weaponized Interdependence,” which quickly became one of the most widely cited papers about economic coercion. The paper spurred scholars and policymakers to recognise how the networks that underpin the globalised economy can be exploited by powerful states to compel policy change or deter unwanted actions. Henry Farrell is a professor a...
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