2 October 1997
Wisconsin State Journal
Our Opinion

Economic Sanctions Rarely Work

During the past four years the United States has displayed a penchant for using economic penalties, such as trade and investment restrictions, as tools of foreign policy, despite overwhelming evidence that such sanctions rarely accomplish their goals.

It's time for Congress and the Clinton administration to rein in this proliferation of economic punishments.

Under the Clinton administration, the United States has imposed economic sanctions 61 times on 35 nations since 1993. That's roughly the same number of sanctions the United States employed during the previous 40 years.

The trend has even spread to cities and states, which are making their own foreign policy with economic sanction. Madison, for example, has imposed sanctions on Myanmar, formerly Burma.

The explosion in the use of economic sanctions attests to Washington's short memory. Just 17 years ago the use of economic sanctions was discredited by President Jimmy Carter's ill-fated wheat embargo imposed against Russia. That embargo, an attempt to force Russian troops out of Afghanistan, backfired to cost U.S. farmers $2.3 billion.

The failure of the Russian embargo was not an unusual result for sanctions. Since 1973 less than one-fourth of the economic sanctions imposed by all nations have succeeded in their goals, according to a study for the Institute of International Economics.

To be sure, economic sanctions have succeeded in rare cases. Sanctions against South Africa in the 1980s, designed to undercut apartheid, are an example. But what made the sanctions successful was that the European Union and other nations participated with the United States.

In contrast, too many of the sanctions imposed under the Clinton administration have been unilateral -- without the participation of other nations. A prime example was the silly Helms-Burton Act. The act expanded longstanding sanctions against Cuba by imposing penalties on other nations, including our close allies, to stop foreign companies from profiting off property expropriated by the Castro government.

Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act last year amid public uproar after Cuban fighter jets shot down to unarmed civilian planes. Those circumstances showed why Congress and Clinton are increasingly turning to sanctions, despite the track record: Sanctions express American outrage.

But a nation that allows outrage to overwhelm good judgment is sure to suffer.

Consider that when the United States banned U.S. automakers from selling cars to Nicaragua, the Nicaraguans simply turned to Japanese and Korean carmakers. The only losers were U.S. carmakers and auto makers.

That's how economic sanctions cost American corporations $15 billion a year in exports, according to USA Engage, a group formed to oppose the growth in sanctions. Those lost exports translate into 250,000 lost jobs.

To some advocates of sanctions, America ought to be willing to pay the price in exports and jobs to take a moral start against outrageous behavior. But often, it is not only Americans who pay the price.

Take the case of Haiti. The United States, under President George Bush, imposed sanctions on Haiti to punish the nation's tyrannical military government and aid its oppressed citizens. But the sanctions made life even more miserable for the impoverished Haitians. A team of American doctors in Haiti in 1994 reported: "The deliberate promotion of malnutrition and disease in Haiti is morally unacceptable."

It took a different form of policy -- the threat of invasion -- to finally force out the Haitian military regime.

Even Jimmy Carter has learned the lesson taught by our experience with economic sanctions. The architect of the Russian embargo now supports legislation being prepared by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., to slow the growth in sanctions.

Let President Clinton and Congress listen to Carter's voice of experience. Economic sanctions may be a useful tool in rare cases, but the record shows that most of the time, they fail.

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