The Enforcement of U.S. Economic Sanctions and Global De-risking Behavior

Abstract

Evidence suggests that firms frequently over-comply with U.S. sanctions—a process also known as “de-risking.” We argue that U.S. enforcement of its economic sanctions has contributed to this phenomenon to the extent that we can observe a systematic relationship between U.S. sanctions enforcement and third-party trade with U.S. sanction targets. Specifically, we theorize that, the greater the frequency and severity of sanctions enforcement penalties imposed by the U.S. against sanctions violators, the more third-party trade with U.S. sanction targets will decline. Analyzing data from 2003 to 2015, we find that U.S. sanctions enforcement actions correlate with significant declines in dyadic trade between third-party states and U.S. sanctions targets, even when enforcement actions target parties external to that dyad. This suggests that the U.S.’s enforcement of its sanctions magnifies the harm that U.S. sanctions inflict on target economies.