What are Trade Sanctions?

Trade sanctions are actions taken by one country (the initiator) to halt a significant amount of its trade with another country (the target) in order to achieve political goals. Sanction actions have a variety of goals, ranging from expressing disapproval to pressuring the targeted government to change its policies. The United States is the country that has imposed the most trade sanctions. When initiating countries apply trade sanctions, they always have an agenda that must be followed by the target country. One key finding of sanctions studies is that they have a poor rate of success. It can be investigated under what circumstances punishments are effective. In around two out of every three situations, sanctions fail to achieve their policy objectives. The fact that the majority of sanctions policies fail, however, does not necessarily imply that sanctions are not effective. Sanctions have not shown to be a viable alternative to the use of force. They fail to inflict economic damage on the victim much too often. Even when they do, the expenses usually do not outweigh the benefits that the disputed policy provides to the target leadership. The majority of experts agree that trade penalties are ineffective policy tools. This evaluation has stayed true regardless of the number of countries imposing sanctions, the severity of the economic damage inflicted on the target country, or the target country’s economic development level. However, why do states continue to implement trade restrictions if they do not function is a source of concern. This paper gives an overview about what are trade sanctions with the help of few examples of sanctions imposed in different parts of the world.