Sanctions are restrictive foreign policy tools that are commonly applied to broad economic transactions, with the punitive aim of coercing behaviour change, such as stopping human rights violations or promoting democracy. According to the Global Sanctions Database, the frequency and duration of sanctions have consistently grown since 1950, while their success rate of achieving the stated aim remains at about 30%. The research analyzed data from 152 countries over a 10-year period and found the mortality toll of sanctions to be comparable to that of armed conflict.

Economic sanctions imposed by the USA or the EU were associated with 564,258 deaths (95% CI 367 838–760 677) annually from 1971 to 2021, higher than the annual number of battle-related casualties (106 000 deaths). This finding aligns with a previous article in The Lancet Global Health showing the lethal effects of aid sanctions—sanctions specifically targeting development assistance in low-income or middle-income countries—which resulted in a 3·1% increase in infant mortality and a 6·4% increase in maternal mortality annually between 1990 and 2019.

Authored by economists Francisco Rodriguez, Silvio Rendon, and Mark Weisbrot, the study underscores the devastating impact of sanctions on public health and essential infrastructure. By targeting key economic sectors such as finance and energy, sanctions restrict access to critical imports like medicine, food, and parts for water and electrical systems, causing widespread suffering without the visible devastation of bombs and missiles. The U.S., which imposes more sanctions than any other country, has increasingly turned to these measures as a tool of foreign policy. While often justified as a nonviolent means of pressuring adversaries, experts argue that the resulting human cost is anything but peaceful.¹ For example, in April 1960 the US was considering what to do about what it believed was the growing influence of communism in Cuba, as highlighted in a ‘Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.² The last point (6) stated:

The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support [for Castro] is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.

If the above [6 points] are accepted or cannot be successfully countered, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government. The principal item in our economic quiver would be flexible authority in the sugar legislation. This needs to besought urgently. All other avenues should likewise be explored.

This memo was followed by the ‘Bay of Pigs’ fiasco (1961) and then the Cuban Missile crisis (1962), similar to how the US blockade of Japan led to ‘Pearl Harbour’ and war. Sanctions lead to either debt and/or devastation and famine or, sometimes, to revolution and/or war. A quarter of all countries were subject to some type of sanctions from 2010 to 2022, with the majority located in Africa. This inequity in countries targeted raises valid questions about whether sanctions are being used appropriately. If economic sanctions must exist, countries imposing them must monitor and review all their consequences, with an explicit exit mechanism in place to prevent unnecessary prolongation. We should not ignore the alarming evidence on sanctions and aid cuts [of harm caused], and countries in the powerful position to wield these economic levers must weigh up whether the health toll is a justifiable trade-off.³

Sanctions as used in Geopolitics

The use of economic sanctions [including blockades] has throughout history been an integral component of the foreign policy of most states. If economic sanctions are generally regarded as an alternative to war, for most people in the interwar period, they represented the very essence of total war, says the expert Nicholas Mulder.⁴ Sanctions date back to antiquity. The “Megarian Decree” issued by Athenian statesman Pericles in 432 BC is the first economic sanction recorded. The Athenian Empire banned traders from Megara from its marketplaces, thereby strangling the rival city state’s economy. Nowadays they are financial or involve cutting off aid, supplies and/or vital imports like in Gaza.

During World War I, the Allied and Associated Powers, led by Britain and France, had launched an unprecedented economic war against the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Ottoman empires. They erected national blockade ministries and international committees to control and interrupt flows of goods, energy, food, and information to their enemies. It was the severe impact on Central Europe and the Middle East, where hundreds of thousands died of hunger and disease and civilian society was gravely dislocated, that made the blockades seem such a potent weapon. Recognition of this led to sanctions becoming the ‘alternative’ to wars in 1919, with the benefit that they reduced the number of casualties for countries that applied them.

To interwar internationalists [after 1919], economic sanctions were a form of deterrence, prefiguring nuclear strategy during the Cold War. Of course, sanctions were not nearly as immediately destructive as nuclear weapons, but for anyone living in the pre-nuclear decades of the early twentieth century, they raised a frightening prospect. A nation put under comprehensive blockade was on the road to social collapse. The experience of material isolation left its mark on society for decades afterward, as the effects of poor health, hunger, and malnutrition were transmitted to unborn generations. Weakened mothers gave birth to underdeveloped and stunted children. The economic weapon thereby cast a long-lasting socio-economic and biological shadow over targeted societies, not unlike radioactive fallout.

The deterrent effect of possible sanctions was [often] enough to restrain the aggression of small states. In 1921, Yugoslavia was forced to break off an incursion into northern Albania by the threat of a League of Nations embargo. Another Balkan conflict between Greece and Bulgaria in 1925 was defused in a similar way. But larger nation-states have in general proven more difficult to subdue. Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and militarist Japan all responded to sanctions not by backing down but by becoming more aggressive. [read ‘self defence’ from their perspective – sanctions and blockades historically have been used as an imperialist measure]

For example, after the outbreak of World War II, the US together with the British Empire and the Netherlands led an alliance seeking to restrain the Japanese war of conquest in China by imposing sanctions that gradually diminished the number of available trading partners. In May 1939, the United States notified Japan that it was withdrawing from the 1911 Treaty of Commerce (www.americanforeignrelations.c…). Britain and the Dutch East Indies followed suit. The result: Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil. Yen reserves held in the United States were also frozen (Miller 2007). By the end of 1941, Japan’s trade had fallen by 20-25% in just 18 months. For some [many] analysts, this US “economic warfare” provoked Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

The US has since 1979 applied various economic, trade, scientific and military sanctions against Iran (imposed after a group of radical students seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took hostages). Later, the United States has imposed sanctions against Iran in response to the Iranian nuclear program and Iranian support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad. Iranian support for the Shia militias in Iraq and the Houthis in the Yemen civil war are also in contention. In 1990, The UN Security Council imposes comprehensive sanctions on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait. One of the most widespread sanctions regime in history, it destroyed Iraq’s economy and resulted in severe food and health crises. Iran suffered, but was more self-reliant.

As de Waal (2024) notes, ‘from the viewpoint of the Global South, financial rules set in Western capitals veer into instruments of coercion’. The primary tool of economic warfare, used by the West, is sanctions. Kanfash (2024) points out how sanctions add to already widespread food insecurity due to war and oppression. Sanctions are used to weaken target states (or individuals) economically and decrease resources to perpetrate violence or encourage elites to concede to foreign demands. They have numerous effects on food security. For example, while not targeting food imports directly, restrictions on Syrian banks and de‐risking measures by international companies mean they are severely constrained. Combined with restrictions on international money transfers, this has led to inflation. Humanitarian carve‐outs were not effective. Similarly, in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Sudan, sanctions led to food insecurity and, in some cases, famine.⁵

Articles on South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria also illustrate the proximate causes of food insecurity and famine. These include direct destruction, killing, and displacement, as well as siege tactics and the use of starvation as a weapon of war (for example by attacks on agriculture, theft of food and livestock, and blocking trade). As Keen (1991) points out, these acts of famine creation can yield benefits: from selling food at high prices, to buying livestock and labour at low ones. The denial or diversion of food aid has been part of this (Jaspars, 2018).⁶ These acts are usually aimed at specific population groups—often those already historically marginalised. In Somalia, for example, the Bantu and Rahanweyn, located in south‐central regions, have repeatedly suffered famine (Maxwell and Majid, 2016), as have ethnic groups like the Masalit in western Sudan before and at the time of writing (Human Rights Watch, 2023). Refer The Silent Killers – How Western Policy Caused 38 Million Deaths (New Lancet Report on Sanctions).

In 2014, after the coup in Ukraine, several [NATO] countries imposed targeted economic sanctions against Russia due to its annexation of Crimea and actions in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions were initially focused on individuals and businesses related to Crimea and eastern Ukraine but were gradually expanded during the year to other entities and sectors of the Russian economy. The sanction regimes of the US and the EU were broadly similar, focusing on individuals and entities in the financial, oil and gas, defense, and technology sectors. After the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States, the European Union and other countries introduced or significantly expanded sanctions against Russia. See the latest sanctions and actions taken against Russia by countries, major companies and organisations by clicking here: graphics.reuters.com/UKRAINE-C… It can be effectively argued they did not work, given Russia’s ability to be self-sufficient and the impact on Ukraine from the ongoing war. These sanctions were developed during the “War on Terror” after 9/11, targeting mainly small countries (i.e. 7 in 5 years)⁷.

The ‘War on Terror’

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. government developed powerful new financial sanctions. Unlike traditional sanctions, which work by preventing the transit of goods and freezing accounts, financial sanctions turn private actors into enforcers. Relying on new legislation and executive orders, the Treasury Department drew up increasingly lengthy lists of “Specially Designated Nationals” (SDNs) and institutions “of primary money laundering concern.” Being on one of these lists amounted to an economic death sentence. Not only were Americans banned from economic relationships with designated entities, but foreign firms and banks also shied away for fear of being listed themselves.

A unilateral action based on domestic U.S. law thus had global implications because the vast majority of world trade and finance is conducted in dollars and therefore passes through institutions subject to Washington’s oversight. Financial sanctions functioned, according to CIA director Michael Hayden, like “a twenty-first-century precision-guided munition.” In their most idealistic form, sanctions promise a collective, nonviolent way to prevent human rights abuses and promote global norms. They have often failed to achieve such goals and sometimes have contributed to economic devastation that has harmed innocent people. Yet at other times, especially when imposed by international coalitions, sanctions have succeeded in changing the behavior of their targets.

Sanctions appeal to policymakers in part because they offer a way to express disapproval and punish enemies without commitment to the kinds of overseas military operations that have recently proven both ineffective and politically unpopular. The power of U.S. unilateral sanctions relies on the monopoly of the U.S. dollar and will last only so long as that monopoly continues. Washington’s recent reliance on sanctions has undermined their legitimacy, however. America’s rivals and allies alike have sought alternatives to the dollar-dominated financial exchange system. Russia, for instance, has moved to create a new regional financial exchange. Europeans are experimenting with barter-based systems to facilitate non-dollar trade with Iran. Venezuela floated a blockchain-based currency.

Following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the UN, heavily influenced by the U.S., imposed sweeping sanctions on Iraq beginning in August 1990 and lasting until the 2003 US invasion. Iraq’s economy collapsed. Its infrastructure—particularly water, sanitation, and health systems—could not recover from war damage without access to foreign parts and supplies blocked by sanctions. UNICEF reported that by the late 1990s, sanctions contributed to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children under five due to malnutrition, disease, and lack of medicine.

After the beginning of the covert US—Israeli war to topple the Syrian government in 2011, the U.S. imposed successive waves of sanctions targeting the former Syrian government of president Bashar al-Assad, including the Caesar Act in 2020, which extended penalties to foreign entities dealing with Syria. Consequently, the Syrian pound lost most of its value. Prices for basic goods skyrocketed, and subsidies on food, fuel, and medicine eroded. As of 2025, 90 percent of Syrians live in poverty.

Earlier, in January 2008, the Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE) released a position paper examining the impact of the sanctions and blockade on the human right to water and sanitation in Gaza. Since that time the humanitarian situation in Gaza has continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Predictions made in COHRE’s position paper of January 2008 have since been realised. This report updates and revises the January 2008 position paper reflecting the severity of the crisis in Gaza’s water and sanitation sector as it currently stands in light of a number of recent significant developments.⁸

There is a revealing back story to Israel’s so-called E1 Plan, a massive settlement project that includes the building of many thousands of new homes. The plan’s goal is to irreversibly sever the illegally annexed eastern, Palestinian side of Jerusalem from the West Bank, and then break the illegally occupied West Bank into two separate territorial cantons, destroying any hope of future Palestinian statehood. Establishment media, including so-called liberal outlets such as the BBC and Guardian, would like you to digest the news from the West Bank and the news from Gaza as though they are happening in entirely different universes. As though what Israel does to Palestinians in Ramallah is unconnected to what it does to Palestinians in Gaza City. That is patently ridiculous. The two territories, the two occupations, the two systems of apartheid, the two programmes of ethnic cleansing draw on exactly the same Israeli impulse for domination, the same Israeli desire for ethnic cleansing and colonisation, the same racist Israeli disregard for Palestinian life.

Israel’s settler colonial project has been going on for decades. All too obviously, the West Bank and Gaza are separate territories—disconnected parts of the same Palestinian homeland—only because Israel enforced their separation. All Israeli leaders have signed up to the same settler-colonial programme that requires the removal and replacement of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, that removal is being carried out to a tight deadline and has required an overt genocide. In the West Bank, it is—for the time being, at least—being carried out more by stealth, more incrementally, more obliquely. But the intended fate of the people in the West Bank is ultimately no different from the fate of the people in Gaza—unless we in the West stop it by refusing to remain silent about what is happening.

E1 is the last phase in an apartheid system made concrete by Israel in the form of the checkpoints and walls it has built across the West Bank. E1 is that territory’s version of the military cage Israel built around Gaza in the early 1990s, when the E1 Plan was first on the drawing board. It will create the conditions for an intensified blockade of the West Bank, in the same way that the cage around Gaza made possible the siege of Gaza that began in 2007. We know where Gaza’s siege led: to years of different forms of Palestinian revolt, including non-violent protests at the perimeter of their cage. Ultimately it led to Hamas’ break-out on 7 October 2023, and Israel’s [planned and ongoing] genocidal response.

Ukraine – A view of strategies used against both sides

Debt. Military emergency works like a universal solvent for democratic resistance. It makes comprehensive conditional sovereignty politically acceptable when presented as humanitarian reconstruction help. Where gradual implementation would face democratic pushback, war creates the political necessity that allows immediate wholesale adoption of international oversight systems. Ukraine’s [proposed] reconstruction shows this clearly. Over $100 billion in international help comes with explicit conditions requiring wholesale adoption of EU legal frameworks, digital government systems, and transparency rules that give international organisations oversight of domestic policy. These requirements would normally take years of democratic debate and legislative approval. Instead, they become emergency necessities that must be implemented immediately for reconstruction aid to flow. [No prizes for guessing who is buying assets in Ukraine…]

The brilliance of this approach lies in how it’s presented: comprehensive international control appears as generous, altruistic humanitarian assistance rather than conditional governance. Citizens experiencing wartime devastation welcome aid that quietly arrives with oversight requirements. Resistance appears ungrateful, irrational, even harmful to national survival. Ukraine’s reconstruction serves as a prototype for the governance system that could be activated worldwide through the UN Emergency Platform when health emergencies are declared. The same institutional mechanisms that condition Ukrainian reconstruction on compliance with international oversight can be triggered globally when ‘complex global shocks’ activate emergency protocols.

The WHO Pandemic Treaty and UN Emergency Platform create the legal and procedural infrastructure to scale the Ukrainian template worldwide. When health emergencies are declared, the same control mechanisms that operate in Ukraine’s reconstruction could activate simultaneously across all participating nations. Countries would face the choice between accepting conditional assistance that embeds international oversight or facing economic isolation during crisis conditions. Citizens experiencing crisis conditions accept oversight requirements that would be politically impossible under normal circumstances. This makes emergency the preferred pathway for installing major governance infrastructure changes.

Climate emergencies, cyberattacks, supply chain breakdowns, or financial crashes could all trigger the same template. Importantly, the Ukrainian precedent shows that emergency-installed governance infrastructure doesn’t disappear when crises end. The success of this prototype provides confidence that similar systems can be deployed worldwide whenever emergencies create the requisite political necessity. The same institutions that manage Ukrainian reconstruction — central banks, Bretton Woods and multilateral development banks, EU membership mechanisms, digital-identity providers, audit firms, data-governance frameworks, and procurement platforms — already operate globally and can implement near-identical oversight bundles under accelerated timelines.

The Ukrainian reconstruction, therefore, reveals the true purpose of international emergency powers: not temporary response, but permanent transformation of governance. Emergency becomes the pathway by which comprehensive conditional rule moves from prototype to planetary platform — with Ukraine as the blueprint, and the UN Emergency Platform as the switchboard.⁹

And what about Russia? War. Apart from being coerced into a proxy war [with numerous lives lost on both sides] against NATO following the US led coup in 2014, and subsequent incremental breaches of Russia’s national security environment, including the killing of thousands of Russia-speakers in the Donbass, accelerating in February 2022, it has suffered severe sanctions implemented by western governments. The breadth and depth of these sanctions have been unprecedented. As of January 2024, over 16,000 restrictions have been placed on Russian individuals and entities, making Russia the most sanctioned country in the world. Approximately 70 percent of assets within the Russian banking system are now under sanctions, harming its financial sector. Key figures in the Russian government, military officials, and oligarchs have faced asset freezes and travel bans, limiting Russia’s economic maneuverability. Between these frozen assets and the impact of the oil price cap, the Coalition has deprived Russia of more than $500 billion. [and contrary to international law]

However, despite profound impacts, three years have provided Russia with the opportunity to adapt, building alternative financial networks and establishing deeper economic partnerships with nations willing to defy Coalition sanctions. [like BRICS] Despite the immense pressure of international sanctions, Russia’s economy has shown remarkable resilience, largely due to its vast natural resources and support from key allies like China. The country’s ability to produce essential commodities, such as food and energy, has allowed it to withstand prolonged economic pressure, much like other heavily sanctioned states. [not sure about this last un-bolded bit. Sanctions have devastated many countries around the world. Only self-sufficient countries, or those with allies able to meet its needs, can survive and even prosper]

You might ask how I know the Russian sanctions are ineffective – here’s an example.  After doing advanced research, I went to three separate banks as a random and innocuous customer. At every one of the banks, the majority of the customers, at the “new account” desk, were foreign nationals asking about setting up business accounts to trade with Russia. In every bank the conversations were friendly and helpful, with the bank staff telling the customers exactly how to set up their account to accomplish the transactions.  No one was saying no; instead they were explaining how to do it in very helpful detail. Within Russia, there are now 3rd party brokers with international accounts, an entirely new industry, which creates a layer of transactional capability for the outside company to sell goods into Russia.  A Samsung TV travels from South Korea to the destination in the RU with the financial transaction between manufacturer and retailer now passing through the new ‘broker’ intermediary. Essentially, that process is what was happening in the banks for small to medium sized companies.

It is true you cannot use VISA, Mastercard or any mainstream Western financial tools to conduct business in Russia; however, the number of workarounds for this issue are numerous.  One of those tools is the use of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin; and within that reality, you find something very ominous about the USA motive. Crypto users are likely familiar with stories like Binance and the US regulatory control therein.  Factually, outside the USA Binance is being used to purchase and trade crypto without issue, but inside the USA it is regulated.  That brings me to the MEXC crypto exchange, a Mexican version, again available globally but not allowed in the USA.  The same applies to Metamask, used all over Europe but not permitted in the USA. 

Then there’s app wallets. You might be familiar with Apple Pay as a process to handle transactions from your iPhone. Apple Pay is linked to your bank account. Well, the “wallet feature” exists on other apps also, like Telegram; however, you can find the wallet feature, but if you try to use it from a USA cell phone… “This feature is not allowed in your region.”  Why are digital wallets available for the rest of the world but blocked by the U.S. government? From the crypto and digital wallet angle, in addition to financial/transactional brokers for durable goods into Russia, there is now an entire industry of selling telephone id’s with EU phone numbers to process the transactions that are blocked by the USA sanction regime. Meaning, a person could buy a phone and register a phone number from within the EU, and then go back to the USA and access all the blocked/restricted financial processes [Binance (non-US), Metamask, MexC, Telegram digital wallet etc].  This would permit them to do untracked financial transactions into and out of Russia from the USA without the USG knowing about them (sanction workaround).

I am not smarter than the U.S. intelligence community, so what does this mean?¹⁰ This means the U.S. government knows exactly why the Russian economy is thriving, the Ruble is stronger against the dollar, and there is nothing -not one thing- visible or different on the ground in Russia that an ordinary Russian citizen would notice.  In fact, the Russian economy is doing fine, better than before the Ukraine conflict initiated, albeit with new financial industries created by the sanctions. If the US government knows this, then why the sanctions? The Western sanctions created a financial wall around the USA, not to keep Russia out, but to keep us in.  The Western sanction regime, the financial mechanisms they created and authorized, creates the control gate that leads to a U.S. digital currency. In essence, the Ukraine war response justified a system that creates a digital dollar [a CBDC, a cult goal].

The authors [in March 2025] find that the sanctions have decreased Russia’s trade with sanctioning states but with very heterogeneous effects, especially across the EU. More importantly, however, they find evidence of significant trade liberalisation between Russia and third countries that have mitigated and may even eliminate the negative primary trade effects of the sanctions. From a broader geopolitical perspective, our results point to the possibility that sanctions may serve as a catalyst for stronger geopolitical fragmentation in the modern world. [like the increase in global violence, like in Gaza, Africa (Sudan, Somalia, etc.) and now Venezuela]

Case Study: Venezuela ¹¹

The U.S.’s intentions for Venezuela appear … dubious, given its quarter-century-long history of regime change attempts against the government. The election of socialist, anti-imperialist president Hugo Chávez in 1998 immediately put Venezuela on Washington’s radar, and the United States soon began preparing for a coup d’état attempt against him. Right-wing leaders were flown back and forth from Caracas to Washington, D.C. for meetings with top American officials. The U.S., through the NED and USAID, began funding anti-Chávez forces who would spearhead an April 2002 coup. On the day of the putsch, U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro was present at the coup headquarters in Caracas, and an American warship entered Venezuelan waters. The Bush administration immediately recognized the right-wing government, only for it to fall to a counter-insurrection two days later.

Undeterred, the U.S. ramped up its financial support to the Venezuelan opposition. In December 2002, it backed an opposition attempt to shut down the country’s oil industry, hoping that the government would fall. It has consistently rejected the validity of Venezuelan elections, even when all relevant bodies (often including the local opposition itself) accepted the results. In 2013, for example, it refused to recognize the electoral contest that brought Nicolás Maduro to power—the only country in the world to do so. These rejections of the popular vote set the stage for violent actions from U.S.-backed organizations.

In 2014, for example, far-right groups carried out waves of attacks against food stores, hospitals, ambulances, kindergartens, and the Caracas Metro system, killing 43 people and causing an estimated $15 billion worth of property damage. They also shut down major highways with barricades, attacking anyone who attempted to pass through. The U.S. government strongly supported the events. Then-Vice-President Joe Biden described those involved as “peaceful protestors” who were being “demonized” by the Maduro “regime”—one that was trying to “distract” Venezuelans from internal issues by “concocting totally false and outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States.” When these actions did not produce the desired outcome, the United States turned to a new tactic: economic warfare.

In 2015, President Obama declared an official State of National Emergency [in the US] due to the “extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.” This was a legal necessity for his administration to impose a wide range of unilateral coercive measures. U.S. sanctions, the State Department freely admits, are designed to “decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” Studies and U.N. rapporteurs describe the sanctions’ effects as severe, citing shortages and economic collapse. Without spare parts and supplies, the country’s oil industry collapsed, resulting in a 99% decline in foreign revenues. Shortages of food, medicines, and other critical commodities became widespread. A report released by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Center for Economic and Policy Research, estimated that the sanctions caused the deaths of more than 40,000 Venezuelans in a 12-month period between 2017 and 2018. Millions of Venezuelans simply left the country.

The United Nations formally condemned the sanctions, urged all member states to break them, and even discussed reparations the U.S. should pay to Venezuela. One (American) U.N. rapporteur visited the country and compared the U.S.’s actions to a “medieval siege” and called for Washington to be investigated for possible “crimes against humanity.” Outside of small independent media websites, this was not reported anywhere in the American press. Once in office, Trump ramped up the economic warfare, sensing his chance to, in his own words, “take all that oil.” Trump, according to those in the White House at the time, was fixated on an all-out invasion, declaring that it would be “cool” to do so, as Venezuela is “really part of the United States.” Some, such as National Security Advisor John Bolton, were in favor of the plan, but more “moderate” voices won the day, arguing that merely organizing waves of terrorist attacks inside the country would bring Venezuela back into American hands.

The case of Venezuela illustrates the lethal impact of sanctions. After the U.S. imposed sweeping economic restrictions in 2017 and further escalated them under the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the country plunged into a historic depression. Between 2012 and 2020, Venezuela’s economy contracted by 71 percent—three times the depth of the Great Depression in the U.S.—with tens of thousands of deaths directly linked to the sanctions, according to multiple studies.

Children under five are especially vulnerable. Sanctions increase rates of malnutrition, making children more likely to die from otherwise treatable illnesses such as measles, pneumonia, and diarrhea.

The study’s findings are consistent with prior research from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) and other institutions that show sharp rises in mortality during economic recessions. Critics argue that U.S. sanctions violate both international and domestic law. They are considered collective punishment under the Geneva and Hague conventions and are illegal under the Charter of the Organization of American States. U.S. law also requires that sanctions be imposed only in response to a “national emergency” caused by a foreign threat—criteria rarely met in practice.

In 2025, the Trump administration is once again setting its sights on Venezuela. In recent weeks, President Trump deployed additional naval and air assets to the Caribbean, including seven warships, a submarine, and an amphibious assault ship, designed for maritime invasions. A squadron of advanced F-35 fighter jets has also been relocated to Puerto Rico, bringing them within striking distance of Caracas. In total, around 4,500 personnel (including 2,500 combat-ready Marines) have been repositioned to the area. In what could be the opening salvo of a major war, the military has already begun to flex its muscles. Earlier this month, it destroyed a small Venezuelan vessel [now 3], carrying out multiple attacks on the boat to ensure there were no survivors. Trump celebrated the action in a post, claiming that the boat was carrying illicit drugs to the United States, and that its crew were member of the Tren de Aragua cartel (TDA), a group, he said, “operating under the control of Nicolás Maduro” himself; one that is “responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States.”

The Trump administration’s extraordinary claims about Maduro and Venezuela have convinced few experts. Professor Julia Buxton of Liverpool John Moores University, a specialist in both global drug policy and Venezuelan politics, stated:

The claim that Venezuela is a major drugs producer has been an ongoing theme of the U.S. campaign against Venezuela dating back to the early 2000s. This kind of anti-drug messaging is really common in U.S. foreign policy and strategy for at least 100 years. What we have got here is essentially just recycled Ronald Reagan [talking points] … It is unsubstantiated and absurd, and it is really not backed by any official data.”¹²

The data does indeed jar wildly with the administration’s accusations. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s World Drug Report 2025 explains that cocaine—the drug most associated with South America—is primarily produced in Colombia, Peru, or Bolivia, and transported via ports in Ecuador to the United States. Venezuela is not mentioned at all in the 98-page document, which catalogs producers, consumers, suppliers, and supply lines of drugs. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s own 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment report essentially agrees with the U.N. Indeed, the 90-page document touches on Venezuela in only two paragraphs on a single page—a clear indicator of the threat posed by the Caribbean nation to the U.S. The section addresses Tren de Aragua’s criminal activities, but does not attempt to link them to the Venezuelan government. In fact, a declassified U.S. National Intelligence Council report from April 2025 concedes that:

The Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States. The IC [intelligence community] bases this judgment on Venezuelan law enforcement actions demonstrating the regime treats TDA as a threat.”

It goes on to note that Venezuelan intelligence, military, and police services have been “engaged in armed confrontations” with Tren de Aragua, and that it “has not observed the regime directing TDA, including to push migrants to the United States, which probably would require extensive [REDACTED] coordination.” “FBI analysts agree with the above assessment,” the document concludes. The illicit drug market in the U.S. is worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. The U.S. is the largest consumer of illegal drugs, as well as a major supplier of the chemicals and fertilizers needed to produce them in the first place.

In a recent interview, President Maduro claimed that most of the profits from the trade stay in the U.S. “Eighty-five percent of the billions from international drug trafficking each year are in banks in the United States. That is where the cartel is; let them investigate and uncover it,” he said, adding:^{13 14 15 16} Also refer ‘The Real Drug Lords: A Brief History of CIA Involvement With Drug Trafficking.’¹⁷

1. https://mronline.org/2025/07/28/sanctions-as-deadly-as-war-lancet-study-finds-u-s-led-sanctions-kill-over-500000-people-annually/ ↩︎
2. Source: Department of State, Central Files, 737.00/4–660. Secret. Drafted by Mallory. Rubottom initialed the “yes” space provided on the source text. ↩︎
3. https://ipdcolumbia.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Executive-Summary-of-Jubilee-Report.pdf ↩︎
4. https://globalchallenges.ch/issue/12/figure/timeline-history-of-economic-sanctions/ ↩︎
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSCchNaA5gQ&t=68s ↩︎
6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11627203/ ↩︎
7. https://lonewolves.info/?p=1190 ↩︎
8. https://www.humanitarianlibrary.org/resource/hostage-politics-impact-sanctions-and-blockade-human-right-water-and-sanitation-gaza-0 ↩︎
9. https://escapekey.substack.com/p/the-emergency-condition?r=9fnjx&triedRedirect=true ↩︎
10. https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/02/11/the-western-sanctions-against-russia-and-u-s-cbdc/#more-255600 ↩︎
11. https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-venezuela-drug-war-claims/290475/ ↩︎
12. https://irp.fas.org/congress/1998_cr/980507-l.htm ↩︎
13. The history of drugs and U.S. regime change operations is well documented, with Washington using the illicit drug trade to topple governments it does not approve of, and turning a blind eye to the actions of those under its control. In 2014, Juan Orlando Hernández came to power in Honduras following a U.S.-backed coup that removed the democratically elected leftist president, Manuel Zelaya, from power. Hernández quickly began using his position to enrich himself, allying with the infamous Sinaloa Cartel. Last year, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison for distributing more than 400 tons of cocaine into the United States. Throughout his crimes, the U.S. government supported his administration, working to ensure the left did not return to power.
    
    Going further back, the Reagan administration funded, trained and armed the Contra death squads in Nicaragua, in an attempt to overthrow the leftist Sandinista Party. Allegations reported by journalists and later examined in official inquiries linked Contra-related networks to cocaine flows into the United States during the 1980s, contributing to the crack epidemic. The Contras used this money to terrorize the country, and eventually ousted the Sandinistas in 1990.
    
    At the same time as it was supporting the Contras, the U.S. was arming and training the mujahideen to overthrow the left-wing, Soviet-backed government in Afghanistan. In order to help fund its $2 billion program, the CIA encouraged its allies to grow and traffic opium, leading to a massive spike in consumption around the world. Professor Alfred McCoy, author of “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” explained the staggering transformation the country went through: “Afghanistan had about 100 tons of opium produced every year in the 1970s. By 1989-1990, at the end of that 10-year CIA operation, that minimal amount of opium–100 tons per annum–had turned into a major amount, 2,000 tons a year, and was already about 75% of the world’s illicit opium trade.” ↩︎
14. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bank-scandal-2020-2-trillion-transaction-suspected-illegal-activity-money-laundering/ ↩︎
15. https://dc.medill.northwestern.edu/blog/2023/10/26/money-laundering-through-us-financial-institutions-continues-to-fuel-fentanyl-trade/ ↩︎
16. https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/04/big-banks-and-drug-money/ ↩︎
17. The Nugan Hand Bank of Sydney was a CIA bank in all but name. Among its officers were a network of US generals, admirals and CIA men, including former CIA Director William Colby, who was also one of its lawyers. With branches in Saudi Arabia, Europe, Southeast Asia, South America and the U.S., Nugan Hand Bank financed drug trafficking, money laundering and international arms dealings. In 1980, amidst several mysterious deaths, the bank collapsed, $50 million in debt. (See Jonathan Kwitny, The Crimes of Patriots: A True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money and the CIA, W.W. Norton & Co., 1 987.)
    https://stillnessinthestorm.com/real-drug-lords-brief-history-cia-involvement-drug-trafficking/ ↩︎