“US sanctions have proven less threatening in recent years”, – the NYT said.
Key aides to President Joe Biden are aware that Washington’s options to impose new unilateral sanctions against Russia are largely exhausted. It is said in an article published on Wednesday in The New York Times.
The piece states that the new US administration has previously criticised events in Russia and Myanmar, among others.
“On both occasions, Biden made it clear that sanctions, a favoured American tool of influence, would soon follow, albeit overused”, – the paper notes.
However, according to the paper, “key aides to Biden acknowledged” that, as one of them noted, as far as Russia was concerned, the US had “pretty much used up the resource of sanctions”. The paper does not specify which aide to the US president in question is being referred to.
The article states: “In significantly different cases with Myanmar and Russia, Biden will have to learn that years of accumulated sanctions fatigue, exacerbated under [45th US President Donald] Trump’s administration, and a decline in US influence will make delivering on promises much more difficult than when he was vice president.”
The publication notes that “US sanctions have proven less formidable in recent years”. The paper notes that the United States has repeatedly imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation, China and Iran but has failed to get what Washington wanted from these countries.
The article quotes former U.S. permanent representative to NATO Ivo Daalder, who heads the Chicago Council on Foreign Affairs. He said the US had “fallen into the trap” of thinking that “sanctions are the easy answer to any problem”. “They show you care and make you pay the price, but usually that’s not enough to change course,” he said. “It should be remembered that presidents often turn to them because anything else seems too expensive,” added Daalder.
The newspaper notes that in preparing for possible new anti-Russian restrictions, Biden’s aides intend to “actively coordinate with allies in terms of applying pressure”.