Some of that money is well spent, but much is lost in failed sanctions episodes. Recent research by my colleagues at the Institute for International Economics calculated the impact of US sanctions on trade, jobs, and wages in the United States. The longer these sanctions remain in force, the greater the cumulative cost for US workers. Moreover, if the sanctions impose significant costs on US interests without the promise of practical results, domestic political support for the maintenance of the US sanctions policy will likely erode over time. Simply imposing costs on the target country may satisfy a thirst for retribution, but it does not necessarily achieve US foreign policy goals.
Sanctions are blunt policy tools that are easily circumvented.
Targeted regimes often adapt to sanctions, even if their people suffer. Meanwhile, ongoing sanctions become increasingly burdensome to US firms and workers. Both the Helms-Burton and Iran Libya Sanctions Acts illustrate the problems with US sanctions policies cited above. Both laws supplement extensive US sanctions in effect for many years. The Helms-Burton sanctions are more significant for their political than their economic effects.