#sanctions

Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has sent shockwaves through the global economy. The Iranian threat to shipping in the Gulf is widely seen as an asymmetric retaliation against the US and Israel. But Iran has actually replicated a tactic that America has long practised in its use of sanctions: it has turned a key chokepoint in the world economy into a weapon to compel its adversary to de-escalate. This is not the first time that the Trump administration has faced blowback from an adversary responding with their own economic weapons. Upon returning to office, Trump embarked on an assault on the global trade system by levying hefty tariffs on friends and foes alike. Several US allies succumbed and quickly signed trade deals to preserve their relationship with Washington. But not all countries acquiesced. China held firm and launched a counteroffensive. When new US export controls were unveiled in late 2025, Beijing retaliated by imposing controls on its exports of refined rare earths. In the decades that followed the end of the cold war, America had an effective monopoly on major sanctions. That is no longer the case. Iran and China have now shown that the era of US dominance in economic warfare is over. The Chinese critical minerals weapon struck US manufacturers in the defence, aerospace and automobile industries, leading to delays and production cuts in North America and elsewhere. China’s pressure on US supply chains eventually forced Trump into economic de-escalation. The deal concluded with Xi Jinping in South Korea in October 2025 amounted to a Sino-American truce in economic coercion. So far it seems to have held up. Now, by embarking on another American war in the Middle East, Trump has unleashed a much larger set of risks. The entire world is experiencing the damage that broad-based economic coercion can inflict. By moving from “maximum pressure” sanctions on Iran to open war, the US prompted the Iranians to deploy an economic weapon of their own — cutting off 20 per cent of global oil and gas flows and one-third of the global fertiliser trade that passes through the Strait of Hormuz and enforcing that closure with missiles, drones and mines.

Broad economic sanctions, often portrayed as a less violent alternative to war, are responsible for an estimated 564,000 deaths each year – most of them children under the age of five – according to a new study published on 25 July in the Lancet Global Health.

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.

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 US, 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.

“Sanctions are becoming the preferred weapon of the United States and some allies – not because they are less destructive, but because the toll is less visible,” Weisbrot wrote in a commentary for the Los Angeles Times. “They kill silently, without the political cost of war.”

EU foreign ministers have agreed to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers over rising violence against Palestinians after Hungary’s new government removed a veto imposed by the country’s former right-wing prime minister. Viktor Orban, a close Israeli ally, had stalled EU plans to expand sanctions amid a surge in settler attacks across the occupied West Bank since October 2023. He was voted out of power in April, with his successor Peter Magyar moving to break the months-long deadlock.