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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.
Episodes
30 episodes
Cuba's Unprecedented Crisis
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 Departm...
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How to Fight an Economic War
Edward Fishman on how to fight an economic war.It has been an extraordinary year in American economic statecraft and economic warfare. When today’s guest last appeared on the show, it was April 2025. We spoke just days after Trump...
Studying Sanctions Through a Feminist Lens
Lisa Neal on understanding sanctions as a form of structural violence.Debates about sanctions tend to follow a familiar script. Who is being targeted? Will the measures change behavior? What are the economic costs to the sender co...
Germany’s Vulnerability in the Geoeconomic 'Zeitenwende'
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 engend...
What Makes Sanctions Termination So Difficult
Julia Grauvogel and Hana Attia on the challenges of sanctions termination.When sanctions make the news it is usually because new measures are being imposed on a country, company, or individual. But sometimes, the news is that sanc...
Syria's Complicated Path to Economic Recovery
Vittorio Maresca di Serracapriola on sanctions relief in Syria.It has been over a year since Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad fled to Moscow and a new government took power in Damascus. Assad’s ouster triggered one of the most rapi...
The Decades-Long Effort to Make Sanctions 'Smart'
Alistair Millar on the challenges of sanctions reform.A quarter century ago, the United States had sanctioned fewer than 1000 companies, organizations, individuals, and vessels around the world. Today, that total is nearly 17,000....
How Putin Benefits from the Iran War
Alexandra Prokopenko on recent developments in the Russian economy.February marked the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It also marked the beginning of a new war. U.S. and Israel airstrikes on Iran have thrus...
Why Trump Now Controls Venezuela's Future
Francisco Rodríguez on the ouster of Nicolás Maduro.On January 3 of this year, American special forces captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and extricated him to the United States. But the operation did not oust the Venezu...
Huawei's Thirty-Year Battle With U.S. Sanctions
Eva Dou on the rise of Chinese technology giant Huawei. Few companies better embody the promise and peril of China’s rise than Huawei. For nearly three decades, Huawei has steadily climbed towards the peak of the global telec...
Why Sanctions on Iran 'Snapped Back'
Esfandyar Batmanghelidj on the "snapback" of sanctions in Iran. Last week, the host of The Sanctions Age, Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, was interviewed by Derek Davison for an episode of American Prestige, a podc...
Why Oil Sanctions No Longer Work
Gregory Brew on 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 reven...
Russia’s Commitment to Austerity Under Sanctions
Nicholas Trickett on how Russia approaches the fiscal pressure of sanctions. Russia is one of the world’s largest economies. It’s a top energy exporter and a major supplier of wheat, fertilizers, wood, and metals. Since the i...
How Sanctions Hit a Small Mining Town
Jeff Stein on the impact of sanctions in a small Guatemalan town. The small Guatemalan town of El Estor was once a bustling mining hub, home to two major nickel mines that provided thousands of jobs and sustained the local go...
The Shadow of Sanctions in Syria
Karam Shaar on the legacy of sanctions in Syria. On December 8, 2024, Bashar Al-Assad fled Syria, bringing an end to the 13-year civil war that had devastated the country. Syrians who had endured years of conflict and depriva...
How to Get Off the Sanctions List
Erich Ferrari on the inner workings of OFAC. There is a powerful office in the Treasury Department called the Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC. You could argue that the officials in OFAC are the most powerful governm...
Reporting from Sanctioned Countries
Golnar Motevalli on her experiences reporting from sanctioned Iran. Covering sanctions is complicated. Editors commissioning reports from countries like Iran, Russia, and Venezuela mainly want stories that focus on security o...
How Sanctions are Spurring Chinese Innovation
Kyle Chan on Chinese innovation in the face of sanctions and export controls. Over the past several years, the United States has escalated its use of sanctions and export controls in the context of growing strategic competiti...
How Sanctions Kill
Francisco Rodríguez on the global death toll of sanctions. In the 1990s, UN sanctions imposed on Iraq led to a humanitarian crisis, with reports of a rapid increase in excess mortality, especially among children. In the early...
Trump's Approach to Economic Statecraft
Edward Fishman on Trump's approach to economic statecraft. The world is still reeling from Trump’s announcement of major retaliatory tariffs targeting all of America’s trading partners, which came back in April. First, Trump ...
The Humanitarian Consequences of Sanctions
Erica Moret on the humanitarian harms of sanctions.In just about every country that has been targeted by a major sanctions program—including Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few—we can observe significant humanita...
How American Regulators Captured Global Banks
Stephen Fallon on how American regulators captured global banks. US authorities have taken advantage of the unique position of the dollar in the global economy to exercise significant control over the global financial system...
Intensifying Economic Competition Between the U.S. and China
Gerard DiPippo on the intensifying economic competition between the United States and China. When the White House recently announced it would increase tariffs on a range of Chinese goods, it used striking language to explain...
How Global CEOs Navigate the Sanctions Landscape
Henry Smith on how global CEOs are navigating the sanctions landscape. In recent decades, multinational companies have pursued market opportunities around the world, creating complex supply chains and financial structures i...
The Challenges of Peacebuilding After Sanctions
Delaney Simon on the challenges of peacebuilding in the wake of sanctions. Sanctions are not meant to last forever. When diplomatic negotiations bring a dispute or conflict to an end, it may be time to lift sanctions imposed...