Sanctions have become popular with U.S. policymakers in recent years thanks to their success in changing Iran’s behavior. First implemented against Iran in 1996 but significantly stepped up between 2010 and 2012, U.S. sanctions helped shrink GDP by nine percent between 2012 and 2014, depress the value of its currency, and deepen its unemployment rate. Those effects convinced Tehran to enter into negotiations over its nuclear enrichment program. Successes such as this have encouraged U.S. officials to use so-called smart sanctions—or highly targeted sanctions programs against specific individuals, entities, and transactions as opposed to broader, less-focused programs—which leverage the United States’ primacy in the global financial system to shut down targets’ ability to do business. The most recent U.S. programs build on this success. Each, however, fails to offer a road map for its own end, a potentially fatal flaw.
Without clear goals, the United States risks enshrining sanctions indefinitely and making negotiations fruitless. The sanctions imposed on Russia in August 2017 are the worst among the new programs in this respect. Lawmakers’ desire to block President Donald Trump from unilaterally lifting the sanctions led them to create checks on the executive branch’s sanctioning authority. The new legislation codified into statute previous White House-created executive orders—including restrictions on the country’s energy, financial services, and munitions sectors—from 2014, in response to the Ukraine conflict, and from the end of 2016, in response to malicious Russian cyber activity. This codification means that Congress, not the president, will have the ultimate power to repeal the measures. The legislation also instituted a review process that allows Congress to reject even minor changes to the sanctions. [...]
Political considerations often complicate plans to lift sanctions. U.S. officials invariably call for further economic pressure during crises—for example, after a North Korean missile launch—without thinking about how to eventually ease that pressure down the line. In these situations, politicians present an aggressive sanctions posture to confront the enemy and to appeal to constituents demanding a strong response but underplay planning for the end of sanctions for fear of signaling weakness or lack of resolve. Policymakers also must be disciplined in distinguishing the conditions the United States’ targets must meet for Washington to lift sanctions. If Russia complies with the Minsk agreements, for example, U.S. policymakers should lift the sanctions, regardless of the country’s continued human rights abuses. And more missile tests by Iran should not be not a basis to reimpose sanctions meant for its nuclear program.
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