11 August 1997
Rocky Mountain News
Editorial

Going Slow on Embargoes

Embargoes against misbehaving countries occasionally do good -- the world's shunning of South Africa probably helped end apartheid -- but America seems to be employing sanctions promiscuously. During the Cold War, Washington imposed economic measures 79 times on adversarial regimes. Since 1993, Washington, states and localities have slapped 142 unilateral sanctions on 41 countries.

In truth, unilateral embargoes are rarely effective. Other nations are not nearly so inclined to employ them as we. Embargoes allow the targeted country to go shopping elsewhere. Then, the injured party is the American exporter and worker. One study estimates that U.S. exports to 26 sanctioned countries fell by at least $15 billion in 1995, costing up to a quarter-million jobs. That's a high price just to feel noble -- or to appease a domestic constituency.

Two Hoosiers would slow down embargo-mania. Sen. Richard Lugar and Rep. Lee Hamilton will soon introduce a bill requiring a study of a proposed embargo to see if it would likely have its desired effect -- making Country X release political prisoners or Country Y stop polluting the oceans. Also, a sanction's benefits would have to outweigh any harm to innocent third parties. New sanctions would be reviewed annually and expire in two years unless renewed.

Almost all this seems reasonable -- so long as the president can override the law in a crisis.

Sometimes economic sanctions are morally compulsory. (Nobody admires the Swedes for trading with the Nazis.) But a lot of thinking ought to precede their enactment. That's what the Lugar- Hamilton bill would ensure.

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