20 April 1997
The New York Times
By Steven Lee Myers
Converting the Dollar into a Bludgeon
A few weeks ago, President Clinton decided not to punish Mexico for losing its war on drugs, partly out of concern that the punishment - economic sanctions - would have hurt Mexico's economy and America's too. This month Mr. Clinton said he'd moderate his sanctions on Cuba to avert a trade fight with the European Union that could, in turn, backfire on businesses at home. The President also seems reluctant to impose tough sanctions on Myanmar for abusing human rights because a few American companies might lose out on business.
Will all the Administration's hand-wringing over economic sanctions - one of the most potent punishments a country can mete out - you might think they are losing their place in the United States' arsenal of diplomatic weaponry.
That's not exactly true, though.
At a time when military force looks less and less palatable, the United States has in fact turned to sanctions more an more to punish everything that's deemed un-American, from harboring terrorists and trafficking in drugs to failing to protect sea turtles.
A study released last month by the National Association of Manufacturers, using the broadest definition of sanctions, found that the President or Congress had imposed sanctions or passed laws authorizing him to use them 60 times against 35 countries over the last four years. According to another study, that is roughly the same number of sanctions imposed in the first four decades after World War II.
In 1996 alone, there were 22 new cases by the association's count. There were laws threatening sanctions against African nations that do nothing to end the custom of female genital mutilation and against Balkan nations that fail to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal at The Hague - both issues, not coincidentally, that received considerable public attention.
And that's not all. Last year, Congress expanded the longstanding sanctions against Cuba, Libya and Iran. And in the case of Cuba, it even went beyond the American embargo. There were sanctions passed to try to stop foreign companies, including those from Canada, Mexico and some close European allies, from making money off property expropriated from Cuba.
This flurry of sanctions continues despite the complaints of the President's economic advisors and many leaders of business and industry, who insist that most sanctions don't work and hurt the economy.
Irresistable and Risk-Free
So why are sanctions so popular? Because they are an irresistible, relatively risk-free and inexpensive way of assuaging America's sense of outrage. (Mr. Clinton signed the expanded sanctions against Cuba, known as the Helms Burton Act, amid the public clamor for American action after Cuban fighter jets shot down two unarmed civilian planes last year. And then he delayed them, when things cooled down.)
"There's a slew of people in Congress and in the Government looking around for ways to make a statement on a variety of subjects," said Barry E. Carter, a law professor at Georgetown University who did research for the National Association of Manufacturers.
The use of sanctions is not new. The United States has wielded them from the earliest days of the Republic. And its sanctions against North Korea and Cuba have lasted for decades.
There are certainly cases where sanctions have been effective, especially when the United States has joined up with other countries or the United Nations. Two examples are the sanctions against South Africa in the 1980's designed to undercut apartheid, and the sanctions against Iraq, designed to isolate Saddam Hussein after his invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
But the rising tide of sanctions has started to rattle American businesses, whose leaders argue that sanctions - in particular, unilateral ones - do not work and deny American companies access to the world's markets. The National Association of Manufacturers' study was but the first shot in an organized campaign to call attention to the problem. Just last week, a coalition called USA Engage announced on Capitol Hill that it would rally business and agricultural companies against sanctions, which, it said, cost the United States $15 billion a year in exports.
"If it's a moral message we're sending, it's an expensive and highly ineffective one," said Marino P. Mareich, the director for International Investment at the manufacturers' association.
The White House seems to be getting the point. No one in the Administration seriously argues, for example, that the United States should - or could - cut off trade to China to protest Beijing's repression of human and political rights. And the President's aides headed off unilateral sanctions against Myanmar while still leaving Mr. Clinton the option to impose them.
The President's aides defend their use of sanctions as pragmatic. They say imposing sanctions - or merely the threat of them - is one of the only diplomatic tools that can be used to cajole a country into behaving better. They may be wrong for China, but they can be the right way to fight terrorism in Iran or drugs in Columbia.
Pragmatism or Hypocrisy
But what is pragmatism to some is hypocrisy to others. The Adminstration's reluctance to impose some sanctions has sparked criticism that it backs off when big American business is at stake.
In fact, there appears to be a groundswell for still more sanctions. An array of human rights and conservative groups say they will fight to deny China's "most favored nation" trade status when it comes up for review in June. And there are new proposals for sanctions against Indonesia and countries that persecute people for their religious beliefs.
"You don't want to be the isolationist, but on the other hand your on't want to make the gross national product the be-all and end-all of American foreign policy and trade relationships," said Gary L. Bauer, the president fo the Family Research Council, the conservative group leading the charge for sanctions on China. "There are other American values which are higher."
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