BY: Pooya Mirzaei
NOURNEWS - The Wall Street Journal, in a note by Ian Tally, outlined some details of the US strategic plan for sanctions and how to use this foreign policy tool in the new administration, quoting some Biden cabinet members.
According to those, involved in the design process, the Biden administration is reviewing the US way of using punitive sanctions, with the aim of preventing widespread and blind sanctions scans, avoiding collateral economic damage and cooperating with allies rather than taking unilateral action.
According to an official, the Biden government has almost completed a comprehensive review of sanctions policies and is expected to publish it by the end of the summer of 2021. Although details of the plan are still being hammered out, some Biden government officials have unveiled some components of the new strategy through a series of measures, including a planned easing of economic sanctions on all parts of Iran.
The details of President Biden's approach have been described by current and former officials, as well as some incoming government officials, at congressional hearings.
Rebuilding and overhauling the policy will lead to a 180-degree turn in the Trump administration's policies, in which sanctions as a foreign policy tool are used more than previous US administrations to target large sections of the economies of Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and other countries. The other was used to put economic pressure on enemies.
According to US officials, the Trump administration's sanctions policy has been successful in helping to shrink the economies of Iran and Venezuela, narrowing North Korea's ties to global financial and trade networks, and achieving short-term goals. However, US pressure failed to lead to a significant diplomatic agreement or a fundamental change in their behavior, raising some doubts about the value of the tool as an independent tool.
The Biden administration and incoming officials have told the administration that the use of sanctions should be part of a "larger diplomatic effort" that includes "cooperating with allies" and "using related persuasion methods" to achieve foreign policy goals.
"This requires working closely with Congress, various parts of the government, foreign counterparts, the private sector and civil society," says Elizabeth Rosenberg, who has been nominated as the Biden administration's nominee to oversee sanctions policy as assistant secretary of the Treasury for sanctions policy.
"At a time when the Treasury Department's financial instruments are often seen as the first option to counter threats, taking a precise and strategic approach is more important than ever," said Rosenberg, who advises the government on sanctions policy.
"Our focus is on ensuring that we move from a unilateral approach, which has defined our policy over the past four years, to real cooperation with our partners," another senior government official told the Wall Street Journal.
With the actions that officials have taken so far, some of the principles of the Biden government's sanctions policy are emerging. Some of the government's initial sanctions were carried out in coordination with its Western allies. The biggest of these is the government's prominent foreign policy program to lift key sanctions against Iran in exchange for a return to compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Treasury Deputy Secretary Adewale Adeyemo, who is in charge of the sanctions review plan, has held meetings with representatives of multinational businesses, banks and non-governmental entities to identify ways to promote guaranteed, strategic, legal and defensible use of sanctions. Human rights groups, humanitarian NGOs, business groups, small businesses and banks are part of the collections that Adewale Adeyemo has met.
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