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.

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The Sanctions Age

Cuba's Unprecedented Crisis

May 25, 2026 • The Sanctions Age

0:00 | 45:25

María José Espinosa on the unprecedented crisis in Cuba.

For more than sixty years, the United States has waged an economic war against Cuba. The sanctions first imposed in 1960 were designed, in the words of a secret State Department memorandum, to bring about "hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."

Six decades later, the sanctions pressure has reached unprecedented levels. In January 2026, the Trump administration signed an executive order blocking oil shipments to the island, which the United Nations has since described as "energy starvation." President Trump has threatened military intervention. Federal prosecutors have indicted Raúl Castro, including for the charge of murder. But at the same time, Washington is sending envoys to Havana and offering aid, suggesting that Cuban leaders could choose a "new path."

What is driving this escalation? What does it mean for Cubans already living through a humanitarian crisis? And is there any path out that does not demand further suffering from a population that has already paid an enormous price?

María José Espinosa is the Executive Director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy In The Americas and a non-resident Fellow at the Center for International Policy. She is a Cuban economist and foreign policy expert with more than twelve years of experience in policy research, advocacy, and international relations. María is also a member of the Bologna Initiative for Sanctions Relief.

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/