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United States sanctions are economic sanctions and embargoes levied by the United States against other countries. Until the 20th century, such sanctions were rarely used. In 1940, the United States participated in international sanctions that forbade export of strategic commodities. Interest in trade as a tool of foreign policy expanded during the Cold War era, and many economic sanctions were applied. Later, sanctions were additionally aimed against countries which the U.S. government listed as "State Sponsors of Terrorism".
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A
- If you isolate a country, you isolate yourself, as the United States, from being influential and effective in the course of events, unless you are talking about the negative influence, like making the embargo that could kill the people slowly, or launching a war and supporting terrorists that could kill them in a faster way.
- Bashar al-Assad, in Interview with the CBS News. 2015
- Iran has condemned new United States sanctions that punish any company that works with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, saying they were "cruel" and would exacerbate suffering in the war-torn country.
B
- Webinar today: From North Korea to Venezuela to Iran, US sanctions disproportionately impact women.
- Medea Benjamin Twitter (16 June 2020)
- These sanctions are a brutal form of economic warfare and collective punishment that leave children dying from hunger and preventable diseases, especially during this pandemic.
- Medea Benjamin, Biden Must End the War on Kids, by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, The Progressive, (28 January 2021)
C
- We’re very generous people, Americans. We gave a billion a year with the Sudan to protect and help people after these tragedies. We’re going to be involved one way or another; we’re going to be there. It would be a lot better without spending a single dime, without costing any American lives — to get in there now with robust diplomacy, hard-core diplomacy, freezing assets, freezing bank accounts, doing everything we can to protect the people who want to vote for the right to freedom... If you knew a tsunami or Katrina or a Haiti earthquake was coming, what would you do to save people?
- George Clooney, "George Clooney: We can stop civil war in Sudan" by Michael Inbar, MSNBC.com (October 12, 2010)
F
- In April, the Alibaba Foundation of China tried to donate masks, rapid diagnostic kits and ventilators to Cuba, but the airline contracted by Alibaba to transport those items to Cuba refused to take the goods because they were afraid the US would sanction them. A ship recently arrived in Cuba with raw materials to produce medications but it decided not to unload... out of fear it would be sanctioned by the US government. So this is why we say we are suffering from two pandemics: COVID-19 and the US blockade.
K
- For far too long, American politicians have been sanctions-crazed...Most remarkably, Congress is moving to sanction Germany, a major ally for generations, because it is building a gas pipeline to Russia.
- ..in terms of the damage, sanctions and wars do deliver similar results... They do deliver death. They do deliver destruction of infrastructure, in the same way, that bombs and bullets do...If we can't just overthrow you, we will destroy you, and that's what the U.S. has done time and again.
- Daniel Kovalik interviewed in Interview: Some American wars fought "simply for profit," sanctions also destructive, human rights lawyer says, Xinhua, (December 8, 2021)
- Sanctions may be a lesser evil than war, but that does not mean they cannot be cruel.
L
- The impulse to sanction one country after another is the same impulse behind wanting to “do something” militarily against this or that regime: we do it because we can and because we think we have the right to do whatever we want to others.
O
- Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba... the United States has supported democracy and human rights in Cuba... primarily through policies that aimed to isolate the island, preventing the most basic travel and commerce that Americans can enjoy anyplace else. And though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions, and it has had little effect beyond providing the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people... Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe. So I’ve authorized increased telecommunications connections between the United States and Cuba. Businesses will be able to sell goods that enable Cubans to communicate with the United States and other countries... we should not allow U.S. sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens that we seek to help.
- Barack Obama, "Statement by the President on Cuba Policy Change" (17 December 2014)
P
- Look, China's economy has become the first economy in the world in purchasing power parity; in terms of volume it overtook the US a long time ago. The USA comes second, then India (one and a half billion people), and then Japan, with Russia in the fifth place. Russia was the first economy in Europe last year, despite all the sanctions and restrictions. Is this normal, from your point of view: sanctions, restrictions, impossibility of payments in dollars, being cut off from SWIFT services, sanctions against our ships carrying oil, sanctions against airplanes, sanctions in everything, everywhere? The largest number of sanctions in the world which are applied – are applied against Russia. And we have become Europe's first economy during this time. The tools that the US uses don't work. Well, one has to think about what to do. If this realization comes to the ruling elites, then yes, then the first person of the state will act in anticipation of what the voters and the people who make decisions at various levels expect from this person. Then maybe something will change.
- Vladimir Putin, Interview to Tucker Carlson, 9 February 2024
S
- Fortunately, U.S. economic sanctions contain the seeds of their own undoing, since they engender the expansion of foreign reserve currencies at the expense of the U.S. dollar, and the phasing out of the U.S. money transfer system (SWIFT) to alternate foreign models such as Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).
U
- Independent UN rights experts on Wednesday warned that hundreds of Venezuelan cancer patients could die because they have been caught up in the excessively strict application of United States sanctions aimed at Venezuela and the state-owned oil company, Petroleum of Venezuela.
- Unilateral coercive measures by some governments are denying many people around the world the right to personal development, as well as holding back sustainable national development, four independent UN human rights experts said on Wednesday... For example, when sanctions imposed by the United States block teleconferencing and data services in countries, people are cut off from webinars and online meetings for information, exchanges, education and training, and doctors cannot consult medical data bases, the experts continued.
- United Nations News Punishment of ‘innocent civilians’ through government sanctions must end: UN experts (11 August 2021)
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