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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
Germany’s Vulnerability in the Geoeconomic 'Zeitenwende'
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Sascha Lohmann on the impact of tariffs and sanctions on the German economy.
Since the end of the Second World War, the world economy has operated on a set of shared assumptions: trade is mutually beneficial, interdependence engenders stability, and politics and economics are best kept separate. Germany built one of the strongest economies in the world on the basis of these assumptions. But they may no longer hold true.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down global supply chains and revealed how dependent advanced economies had become on goods produced thousands of miles away. In 2022, the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced Germany to wean itself off its dependence on cheap Russian gas, sending energy prices soaring. In 2025, the Trump administration turned tariffs into a political weapon, threatening Germany's export machine. And in February of this year, the United States and Israel attacked Iran, triggering the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, leading to yet another crisis energy markets. Four crises in just six years have called into question Germany’s recipe for prosperity.
This episode explores the state of Germany’s economy in the geoeconomic zeitenwende, which has seen sanctions dent German export ambitions. Sascha Lohmann is a Senior Associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. He is an expert on U.S. foreign and national security policy, transatlantic relations, and the intersection of political economy and national security.
The Sanctions Age is hosted by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Josefine Petrick.
To receive an email when new episodes are released, access episode transcripts, and read the hosts reflections on each episode, sign-up for the The Sanctions Age newsletter on Substack: https://www.thesanctionsage.com/