US fears overuse of 'economic warfare' tool

According to RIA Novosti, the Washington Post in an analysis on July 25 said that about a third of the countries in the world are subject to US sanctions to one degree or another. Washington's excessive use of "economic warfare" tools is causing concern in government circles, but their use continues to increase at a record pace.

“The United States puts one-third of the world’s countries under financial pressure on individuals or organizations, imposing three times more sanctions than any other country or international organization. They have become an almost instinctive weapon of economic warfare, and their overuse has been acknowledged at the highest levels of government,” the Washington Post said.

The Washington Post said that the use of sanctions has increased during the last four presidential terms: The trend began under President George W. Bush and intensified under Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The article also pointed out that sanctions have become “a multibillion-dollar industry of lobbyists and influential companies that enrich former US officials.

In addition, sanctions policy, or even the threat of sanctions, is a potentially effective pressure tool, contributing to the fact that “countries subject to sanctions can turn to the black market, thereby strengthening the actions of criminal groups.” And America’s rivals are increasingly cooperating to circumvent the pressure they are under from Washington’s sanctions.

The Washington Post also noted that the punishment of denying access to the dollar has led to a desire to abandon it altogether.

Two years of sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine have hurt Russia’s economic prospects and raised the cost of military production in the long term, but they have also created a shadowy fleet of tankers that sell oil outside international regulations and brought the Kremlin and Beijing closer together, the Washington Post said.

According to the Washington Post, concerns about the effectiveness of overusing sanctions and the risk of them becoming worthless have been acknowledged by many in the US government, and some have expressed this directly to President Biden.

“However, while the total volume appears to be rising, each individual measure seems reasonable, and stopping the trend of imposing sanctions is becoming more difficult,” the Washington Post commented.

At the same time, the newspaper said, the US is reimposing sanctions at a record pace in 2024, and more than 60% of low-income countries are now under some financial pressure.