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Economic sanctions have resurfaced at the center of public policy debate. After a brief pause following the politically disastrous grain embargo and pipeline sanctions in the early 1980s, sanctions are once again the weapon of choice to enforce a heap of US foreign policy goals, from countering terrorism to battling drug trafficking. A recent National Association of Manufacturers (1997) study lists over 30 countries hit by new US sanctions during the period 1993-1996. Many of these actions …

…the loss of exports may have added to the unemployment rolls. But even if the loss of exports had zero effect on total employment, it certainly reduced the number of good paying jobs. If the next twenty years see the same frequent application of sanctions, the cumulative loss of wage premiums could exceed $20 billion (20 years times roughly $1 billion a year, not taking into account the rising annual loss of exports). This is a heavy cost.