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The Sanctions Age
The Sanctions Age is a podcast that explores how sanctions are changing the world.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Department of Treasury had imposed sanctions on fewer than 1,000 companies and individuals. Today, more than 10,000 entities have been targeted.
Leaders around the world are imposing sanctions in response to wars, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, human rights violations, and technological competition. As a result, a growing list of countries are targeted by sanctions, export controls, and investment restrictions, including China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and Syria.
The Sanctions Age invites the people who understand sanctions best—economists, historians, lawyers, policymakers, and journalists—to explain their use and significance. Understanding sanctions is the key to understanding politics and economics today.
We are living in The Sanctions Age.
The Sanctions Age
Why Oil Sanctions No Longer Work
Few sanctions have been used as aggressively as oil sanctions. These measures are meant to hit oil producing “rogue states” where it hurts, starving governments of vital revenues and forcing changes in policy. But look around the world today and you will see a growing list of countries defying oil sanctions. Iran is still pumping. Russia is still exporting. Venezuela is still finding buyers. Oil sanctions were once thought to be the most powerful economic weapon in Washington’s arsenal. But Gregory Brew believes that “the age of oil sanctions as a coercive tool is coming to an end.”
On this episode, we unpack Greg’s argument, and along the way look at how countries like Iran and Russia are still pumping, shipping, and marketing oil for eager buyers. We discuss the networks that move this sanctioned crude, the central role that China plays in this trade, and we examine about a recent report into a shadowy oil broker called Ocean Glory that shows just how sophisticated sanctions evasion has become.
Greg is an analyst with Eurasia Group’s Energy, Climate & Resources team. He also serves as the group’s Iran country analyst. A historian by training, Greg is the author of two books on oil, Iran, and U.S. foreign policy.
The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj.
The show is produced by Spiritland Productions.
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The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj. The show is produced by Spiritland Productions.
To receive an email when new episodes are released, access episode transcripts, and read Esfandyar's notes on each episode, sign-up for the The Sanctions Age newsletter on Substack: https://www.thesanctionsage.com/