Top 95 Sanctions Quotes

By the 1970s, Western sanctions had hollowed out the Soviet economy. Ultimately, however, what brought down the Soviets was their inability to repair the catastrophic damage that began with the meeting of Igor Gouzenko and the RCMP.

Opponents of U.S. sanctions have made ‘unilateral sanctions’ their special target. They argue that sanctions observed by many nations would be much more effective. True enough. Far better for trade with an outlaw regime to be restricted by many nations than by just one.

People’s perception changes so fast. You win, and people say, ‘Well, he had all of those sanctions at USC, and that’s why he lost.’ You lose, and, ‘OK, he’s a bad head coach, and he’s just a good play-caller wherever he has been.’

Border enforcement coupled with employer sanctions and threatening employers who hire immigration law violators is insufficient.

Politicians often call for sanctions as a way of sounding tough when they don’t want to take riskier measures.

After a generation of misrule under Mr. Hussein, who built a huge military infrastructure while neglecting civilian investment, and a dozen years of United Nations sanctions, Iraq’s unemployment rate tops 50 percent.

Sanctions aren’t about weapons of mass destruction. People need to understand that.

The sanctions which the West introduced against Russia seriously affect us.

Only if we accept the proposition that the state of Israel is the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Jewish people would a movement calling for divestment, sanctions and boycott against that state be understood as directed against the Jewish people as a whole.

International economic and political sanctions on Iran, as crucial as they may be, are only an initial step, and must be dramatically increased.

Economic sanctions rarely achieve the desired results.

The Arab nations must be on our side. And if we catch them financing, if they funnel money to IS, that’s when sanctions and other actions have to kick in.

The economic sanctions against Russia are madness, directed against a neighboring and friendly market.

Saddam’s goal is to achieve the lifting of U.N. sanctions while retaining and enhancing Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. We cannot, we must not and we will not let him succeed.

In 1963, the U.N. Security Council declared a voluntary arms embargo on South Africa. That was extended to a mandatory embargo in 1977. And that was followed by economic sanctions and other measures – sometimes officials, countries, cities, towns – some organized by popular movements.

Sanctions and boycotts would be tied to serious political dialogue.

Certainly the international community is putting a lot of pressure on Iran and making clear that its nuclear program must stop. If it stops with the sanctions, the combinations of sanctions, diplomacy, other pressures, I, as the prime minister of Israel, will be the happiest person in the world.

Today further EU targeted sanctions on Syria come into force. The message is clear and unambiguous: those responsible for the repression will be singled out and held accountable.

We should have imposed new sanctions in 2013 and maintained the strength of our negotiating position, which is what brought Iran to the table in the first place.

The United States already has in place comprehensive trade sanctions against Sudan, imposed because of the regime’s support for terrorism. While we maintain diplomatic relations, we do not staff our embassy there.

It’s frightening to think about more sanctions. When I’ve met North Koreans in China, they’ve said to me, ‘You have no idea how difficult our lives are. We live like dogs.’ They wake up in the morning wondering what they’re going to eat for dinner.

Attempts to settle crises by unilateral sanctions outside the framework of U.N. Security Council decisions threaten international peace and stability. Such attempts are counterproductive and contradict the norms and principles of international law.

One of the things we need to do with North Korea, which is a rogue nation, is to get the international community in support of further sanctions, of keeping pressure on the North Korean regime.

The effect of sanctions on the Russian economy are clear to everybody, first to the Russians and to the Russian leadership, and the surroundings of the Russian leadership, the circle that is close to the Russian political leadership.

Russia may well be willing to stop interfering in Eastern Ukraine in exchange for a degree of sanctions relief if it could be assured that ethnic Russians there would not face reprisals.

Well in the end the world can crank itself up to sanctions, as it has with Zimbabwe, another sad case.

The question was never whether the United States, E.U., NATO, Arab League, U.N. Security Council, and African Union could together using economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and military attacks to bring Qaddafi down. The question was always how much time, how much blood, and what damage to NATO.

Trump has actually been tougher on Ukraine than President Obama was. The first thing he did was put sanctions on Russia as it relates to the Ukraine.

I remember as a kid, my mom had to trade canned food to buy my brother and me chocolate because we were living in Serbia at the time, and there were sanctions. If I catch myself complaining about going to a red carpet event, I say, ‘Shut up.’

We don’t mind having sanctions banning us from Europe. We are not Europeans.

In 1995, sanctions led Sudan to cut its ties with terrorists and expel Osama bin Laden.

On April 27th 2017 the UK approved Magnitsky Sanctions as part of the Criminal Finances Bill. The provision gives the British government the power to seize assets of gross human rights violators.

An act of unilateral nuclear disarmament by a European power would have a much more lasting impact than all the sanctions under consideration. Sanctions, as we know from the example of Iraq, always affect the least powerful citizens the most.

The sanctions have been a key element in making sure that those who have violated human rights and are guilty of corruption have a clear consequence to their actions. They have also been key to helping protect the assets of the Venezuelan people.

Not one single country in the world is dependent for their trade wholly on WTO guidelines – they aren’t ‘rules,’ because the sanctions for breaching the guidelines are puny.

Many Europeans are concerned that stronger sanctions are a slippery slope toward war unless the U.S. is at the table.

By legitimizing Iran’s nuclear program, removing the pressure of economic sanctions, and allowing it to obtain conventional weapons and ballistic missiles, this agreement makes the prospect for war more likely, not less.

Russia’s actions in Syria are not the only reasons to distrust Mr. Putin. Moscow has opposed attempts by the U.N. in November 2011 to increase sanctions against Iran for its illicit nuclear program.

There won’t be a law with sanctions, but Mexicans and Mexican consumers will know how to value those companies that are loyal to our national identity and those that are not.

The United States has been locked in an escalating confrontation with Iran ever since President Trump decided to pull out of the nuclear deal in 2018 and to impose unilateral sanctions in 2019.

For Italy, sanctions are never an end; they are an instrument that must be overcome as soon as possible.

A key player with respect to sanctions is, of course, China. And so, if a military option were to be exercised, then obviously we would play very heavily in that process. But that’s not a decision, fortunately, that the intelligence community makes.

I personally believe, as church law sets out, that sanctions are an absolute last resort, particularly penal sanctions of depriving people of the sacraments.

If the world believes that Iran doesn’t play by the rules and imposes sanctions, then we’ll follow them whether we have an opinion about it or not.

As a result of the strategic patience policy, we now have North Korea testing four times an atomic weapon; they’ve violated numerous United Nations sanctions, U.S. sanctions by launching ballistic missile tests.

Every time the liberals pass a bill – I don’t care what it involves – they stick criminal sanctions on it. They don’t feel there is any way people are going to keep a law unless they can put them in jail.

I believe that dialogue is necessary. We were unable to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue through only the sanctions and pressure.

The Americans invaded a country without understanding what eight years of a war with Iran had meant, how that traumatized Iraq. They didn’t appreciate what they support for a decade of sanctions in Iraq had done to Iraq and the bitterness that it created and that it wiped out the middle class.

It’s ridiculous how the United States practically every week sanctions Cuba and then uses manipulative language to say this is ‘helping’ the Cuban people.

Sanctions always hurt the poor, the weak, the children.

Sanctions historically are quite counterproductive in the sense that if you impose sanctions on your enemy, it tends to strengthen your enemy.