Sunday, August 19, 2018

Do US Sanctions Work? | Inside Story


Punishing its enemies economically, when stopping short of armed force, has long been a favoured American way of achieving foreign policy goals.

Sanctions have been around for decades, but came to the fore after the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001. They are now again present when diplomacy does not work.

President Donald Trump has been imposing them more widely and more often. The latest were over Turkey’s detention of US pastor Andrew Brunson, which has triggered one of the most serious rifts with a NATO ally. But those targetted by the US are hitting back with their own sanctions, some of the same level and scale. And the list of countries affected is long. But do the sanctions serve any purpose? And who gets hurt the most?

Presenter: Hoda Abdelhamid | Guests: Richard Weitz, Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at the Hudson Institute; Mohammad Marandi, Head of North American Studies graduate programme at the University of Tehran; Christopher Preble, Vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.