More than Foes By Daniel Griswold Using trade as a weapon of foreign policy has harmed America's economic interests in the world without significantly advancing national security. The proliferation of trade sanctions in the last decade has been accompanied by their declining effectiveness. From Cuba to Iran to Burma, sanctions have failed to achieve the goal of changing the behavior or the nature of target regimes. Sanctions have, however, deprived American companies of international business opportunities, punished domestic consumers, and hurt the poor and most vulnerable in the target countries. According to the president's Export Council, the United States has imposed more than 40 trade sanctions against about three-dozen countries since 1993.
Economic sanctions are especially damaging when applied to duel use technology.
The first is that similar technology can often be obtained off the shelf from foreign competitors. Export controls succeed only in cutting U.S. firms out of fast-growing foreign markets without enhancing national security one bit. The second flaw is that whatever controls are written into law are quickly outdated by Moore s law of technological advancement. As well as inflicting economic damage, trade sanctions have been a foreign policy flop. A comprehensive study by the Institute for International Economics found that sanctions have achieved their objectives in fewer than 20 percent of cases.