Tag Page Sanctions

Sanctions Are No Longer Economic. They’re Strategic Theater.

The U.S. decision to tighten maritime pressure on Venezuela’s oil exports is being framed as enforcement. Anti-smuggling. Anti-corruption. Anti-authoritarianism. Pick your justification. But sanctions at this scale are no longer about compliance. They are about signaling. Washington knows Maduro is unlikely to reverse course because of tanker blockades alone. What these measures really communicate is resolve — to allies, to rivals, and to domestic audiences. The message is less “change your behavior” and more “watch what happens when you cross us.” The risk is that sanctions become performative rather than effective. They harden positions without creating exit ramps. They punish economies faster than regimes. And over time, they normalize a form of pressure that sits just below open conflict. When sanctions turn into strategy substitutes, diplomacy doesn’t fail loudly. It simply stops being attempted. #USPolitics #Sanctions #LatinAmerica #Geopolitics #ForeignPolicy