The United States is the all-round champion in the number of sanctions imposed on its adversaries and rivals, with one-third of all countries on Earth subject to some sort of restrictions, according to the analysis.
Starting in the 1990s, successive US administrations have made economic punitive measures and economic warfare the main instrument of their foreign policy, which all too often are ineffective and backfire, the analysis said.
Decades-long sanctions on North Korea for instance have failed to dissuade Pyongyang from advancing its weapons programs and developing intercontinental ballistic missile capabilities, the analysis added
The US sanctions on Nicaragua and Cuba have proved completely ineffective in removing the respective administrations of Daniel Ortega and Fidel Castro (now Miguel Diaz-Canel).
While the United States at present imposes three times more sanctions than any other country or international body, the overuse of such restrictive measures is increasingly recognized at the highest levels of the US government, the analysis noted.
The Joe Biden administration has never been able to say “no” to the temptation of the power of sanctions and the apparent ease of their application, as Treasury Department staffers have had to shelve their drafts on the restructuring of the sanctions system and give way to new economically suffocating measures..
The thousands of sanctions have made lobbyists and former US officials richer due to the billions of dollars paid by foreign countries and oligarchs to help them safely navigate the changing geopolitical and economic environment, the analysis added.
Between February 2022 and January 2024 alone, the United States imposed sanctions on more than 16,000 individuals, over 9,000 companies, and more than 3,200 institutions from Russia, making the country the most sanctioned one in the world.
