The Trump administration’s sanctions policy could matter more than its use of tariffs

US use of sanctions has ballooned. Yet Venezuela shows the failure both of ‘maximum pressure’ tactics and attempts to leverage sanctions for ambitious goals. A review is urgently needed.

Expert comment Published 28 January 2025 4 minute READ

Since his inauguration, most of the world’s attention has focused on President Donald Trump’s professed love of tariffs. But the new administration has said relatively little about its intentions surrounding the use of sanctions.  

There have been two notable exceptions: Trump has announced he would impose more sanctions on Russia if it refused to end its ‘ridiculous war’ in Ukraine. And over the weekend, the president threatened to impose sanctions on Colombia (alongside tariffs) if the country did not accept military deportation flights from the US. (Bogota has since backed down).  

For now, Trump’s broader long-term strategy for the use of sanctions remains unclear. Yet it may do more to shape international politics, economics and alliances than his use of tariffs.

The years of sanctions growth

Sanctions are often viewed as a tool of economic and diplomatic coercion, much in the same way as Trump has wielded tariffs. But sanctions are intended to shut down imports or exports to a country rather than tax imports like tariffs; their efficacy is harder to assess; and once in place they are far harder to unwind.  

Plans by President Joe Biden to evaluate and potentially scale back sanctions floundered.

Yet, in the past decade sanctions have become the preferred punitive alternative to conflict or military intervention, accumulating at a breakneck pace.    

During his first term in office, President Trump imposed more than 5,000 sanctions, on firms, individuals and countries. That included the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran when the US pulled out of the nuclear deal; broad ‘maximum pressure’ economic sanctions on Venezuela in 2019 (intended to force President Nicolas Maduro from power); and sanctions on firms and economic sectors in China. Then US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin commented that half of his time was spent on sanctions policy.

Plans by President Joe Biden to evaluate and potentially scale back sanctions floundered. A promise to undertake a wholesale assessment of their utility, cost and effectiveness resulted only in a five-page policy paper in October 2021. This guidance merely highlighted the growth of US sanctions (tenfold from 912 in 2000 to 9421 in 2021) and provided anodyne recommendations. 

In fact, under Biden, US sanctions continued to mount. According to the Washington Post, the Biden administration added more than 7000 sanctions to the US total while maintaining Trump-era China sanctions. One exception was Biden’s loosening of sanctions on Venezuela to encourage negotiations for the 2024 presidential elections in that country.

That means the US remains by far the world’s most prolific sanctioner (although the reliance on sanctions as the Swiss Army knife of diplomatic tools is not limited to Washington). 

China and Russia are also imposing their own sanctions, sometimes using dubious interpretations of national laws.

According to my calculations, by the end of 2022 – which included the first round of international sanctions imposed on Putin’s Russia for his invasion of Ukraine – there were a total of 442 active economic and sectoral sanctions, including export and import controls, not including personal, targeted sanctions. Of those, the US, UK, EU and UN were responsible for 300. 

If targeted, personal sanctions are included the number swells to an eyewatering 15,373 US sanctions worldwide, according to a recent Washington Post investigative report.

Stated objectives for these sanctions vary. Among the public targets of the 442 active sanctions in 2022 were: global terrorism, illicit commerce, narcotics trafficking, corruption, cybercrime, violation of human rights or democratic norms and foreign interference in US elections. Sanctions imposed on some countries, such as Iran, have multiple stated objectives.

Increasingly, sanctions are no longer the domain of the West. In what scholars refer to as ‘lawfare’, China and Russia are also imposing their own sanctions, sometimes using dubious interpretations of national laws. One example is China’s imposition of trade sanctions on Norwegian salmon after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese dissident, the late Liu Xiaobo in 2010.  

For decades, debate has raged over how useful unilateral, broad economic sanctions can be in achieving objectives like regime change or improving human rights

Today, though, concerns are mounting about their broader effect on geopolitics. Countries which are the subject of extensive US sanctions such as North Korea, China, Russia, Venezuela and Iran have not only survived but also tightened their economic, diplomatic and, in some cases, military cooperation to evade sanctions and develop their own financial and commercial channels to protect themselves and sustain their economies.   

Sanctions against these countries endure with little clear end, but tend to have common, unintended effects: punitive consequences for ordinary citizens – and the increased concentration of economic and political power among the regime’s domestic allies.  

The case of Venezuela

US policy towards Venezuela provides a good test case. The Trump administration’s 2019 maximum pressure strategy failed to spark any improvements in human rights or significantly weaken the regime. Arguably they accomplished the opposite, furthering a political stalemate and worsening human rights inside the country.  

With Trump back in the White House, the pressure is growing for a return to ‘maximum pressure’ on Maduro.

Sanctions were partially lightened by the Biden White House in 2022 and 2023 when it granted licences to one US and three European energy companies to invest in and produce oil and gas in Venezuela. 

The intent was to leverage sanctions to break the deadlock in the negotiations between the opposition and the Maduro government and to establish a process for credible presidential elections in 2024. 

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This process helped unify the opposition and brought international attention to the elections. But the ambitious goals for the loosening of sanctions were not met. 

The Carter Center and a UN Panel of Experts denounced the integrity of the 28 July 2024 elections, and President Maduro declared victory without providing data to support his claim.

With Trump back in the White House, the pressure is growing for a return to ‘maximum pressure’ on Maduro. Restoring oil and gas sanctions might seem logical. 

The question is, how? If the Venezuela sanctions are to ‘snap back,’ they must be implemented, announced and coordinated as part of a broader policy.

Reviewing US sanctions

A new sanctions policy requires a careful review and evaluation of US and international sanctions. Such a review should be separate from the White House’s tariff threats and applications.

Sanctioning governments… need to develop a metric to assess the impact on local populations and the economy.

It will need to examine the multiple objectives of sanctions, better streamlining them around clearly defined policy strategies. 

Rather than being a singular, go-to answer for threats to peace or to international norms, sanctions need to be embedded within a broader diplomatic, coordinated multinational policy with specifically defined objectives and steps to achieve them matched to sanctions relief. 

Such a policy should be articulated not just to the target regime, individual or organization but also publicly – to ensure their progress is better evaluated.

Sanctioning governments also need to develop a metric to assess the impact on local populations and the economy, where poverty and inequality are often blamed on foreign sanctions. Doing so will not be easy, but such a metric is badly needed to help guide decisions on existing and future sanctions regimes.   

How the Trump administration addresses the question of sanctions will matter not just for Venezuela and Venezuelans but for the US’s geostrategic position. 

Washington must work hard to end the unrestrained, ballooning and at times conflicting expansion of sanctions and their objectives in favour of a more coherent policy that accounts for the known challenges – and distinguishes US sanctions convincingly from the lawfare practiced by its opponents.