[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 60 (Thursday, April 29, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4459-S4461]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DODD (for himself and Mr. Hagel):
  S. 927. A bill to authorize the President to delay, suspend, or 
terminate economic sanctions if it is in the important national 
interest of the United States to do so; to the Committee on Foreign 
Relations.


               the sanctions rationalization act of 1999

 Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill on 
behalf of myself and Senator Hagel, which we hope will bring 
desperately needed reform to the process by which the United States 
imposes sanctions on other nations.
  Eighty years ago, President Wilson formally added economic sanctions 
to America's foreign policy arsenal for the first time, saying that 
with sanctions as a weapon, ``there will be no need for force.'' In the 
intervening decades, we have taken a greater liking to sanctions than 
President Wilson ever could have imagined. I doubt very much, however, 
that he would approve of the way in which we employ that tool today nor 
of the results accomplished by sanctions.
  When President Wilson described his idea of sanctions as a diplomatic 
tool, he was trying to convince the Senate to ratify American 
membership in the League of Nations. The sanctions he envisioned were 
broad, multi-national efforts designed to affect specific results under 
limited circumstances. He also intended sanctions to serve as one 
component of multi-stage escalation of diplomatic pressure, rather than 
a complete response.
  Our method for imposing sanctions today bears almost no resemblance 
to President Wilson's original concept. Sanctions have become the first 
response to actions which are objectionable to the United States. Very 
often, they are also a response in and of themselves, rather than part 
of a coherent escalation of pressure. In addition, the vast majority of 
American sanctions are not the multilateral efforts President Wilson 
envisioned. Rather, Mr. President, they are unilateral efforts which 
anger our allies, damage our global standing, and hurt our own 
businesses and people. And lest we excuse the drawbacks of unilateral 
sanctions with the argument that the benefits for American foreign 
policy outweigh the harm, let me be very clear: there are very rarely 
such benefits.
  For far too long we have subscribed to the mistaken view that 
sanctions represent concrete steps more powerful than mere condemnation 
and more speedy than diplomacy. Unilateral sanctions, Mr. President may 
make us feel good by severing access to American know-how, markets, 
ideas, and products. They may help us demonstrate that we are willing 
to be tough on governments with unacceptable policies or even allow us 
to appease a particular constituency that has clamored for action 
against a particular rogue nation.
  What unilateral sanctions do not do, however, is work. We are 
blindfolded by our own rhetoric, Mr. President, if we think that 
sanctions are the key to correcting the behavior of targeted nations. A 
recent study found that perhaps one out of every five unilateral 
sanctions has any desired effect at all. And in those few cases where 
our goal was met, such as a change in the President of Colombia, 
sanctions were only one of many factors.
  When we mention successes, we all too often ignore the much longer 
list of countries--including Haiti, Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, China, 
Panama, and North Korea--where sanctions have failed. In fact, 
sanctions may even allow some authoritarian regimes to consolidate 
their control by providing them with a convenient scapegoat to blame 
for their domestic failures.
  In addition, we must not lose sight of the unintended consequences of 
sanctions. They hurt our economy. They hurt our allies. They hurt our 
ability to achieve our foreign policy goals. Perhaps most of all, they 
hurt our own citizens. Mr. President, it is imperative that we move 
expeditiously to correct the deep flaws in our system for imposing 
sanctions. In recent years, Congress has imposed sanctions intended to 
discourage the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the 
ballistic missiles to deliver them, advance human rights and end 
genocide, end state-supported terrorism, discourage armed aggression, 
thwart drug trafficking, protect the environment and even, in a few 
cases, oust governments that are anathema to the United States.

  Since President Wilson proposed the use of sanctions to realize 
American foreign policy goals, we have imposed them more than 110 
times. Today, however, the situation is growing more acute. In just the 
past six years, Congress passed more than 70 sanctions. That is more 
than 11 per year. Last year, we had sanctions in place against 26 
different countries which included more than half of the world's 
population.
  When Congress passes these sanctions, however, it often takes a 
second congressional action to repeal them. This onerous process robs 
our nation of the ability to react to changing circumstances, 
interferes with the President and Secretary of State's mandate to 
negotiate with foreign governments and leaders and prevents the lifting 
of sanctions which have little chance of success while bringing harm on 
the United States' national interests. The bill that I am proposing 
today will correct these deficiencies by giving the

[[Page S4460]]

President the authority to delay, suspend or terminate any sanction 
that he determines is not in the United States' national interest.
  We often think of sanctions as cost-less actions since they require 
no governmental appropriation. As business leaders and workers across 
the country will tell you, however, that perception is simply 
erroneous. In 1998, the United States had sanctions, of some sort, in 
place against 26 different nations including China and India, the two 
most populous nations in the world. Those sanctions covered well over 
half of the world's population, cutting American firms off from 
billions of potential customers. According to the Institute for 
International Economics here in Washington, the economic sanctions 
currently in effect cost American businesses $20 billion annually in 
lost export sales and cost America's workers 200,000 high-wage jobs.
  Those figures, however, tell only part of the story. The cost to 
businesses does not end when the sanctions are repealed. Rather, the 
absence of American companies allows foreign competitors to make 
inroads leaving the American businesses to try battle the entrenched 
competition, along with any lingering popular resentment toward the 
United States, when the barriers fall. Needless to say, our allies 
think that American unilateral sanctions, while affording them a rather 
pleasant competitive advantage, lack a degree of rationality.
  It would be shortsighted, Mr. President, to consider the cost merely 
in terms of the monetary loss. Rather, our wholesale use of unilateral 
sanctions damages our standing in the world community. Our diplomats 
have to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort trying to assuage 
the concerns of our allies who find themselves on the receiving end of 
some of our secondary sanctions. Meanwhile, when dealing with target 
nations, they are deprived of the ability to offer a carrot in exchange 
for policy changes. Moreover, the fact that more than half of the 
world's population is now on the receiving end of American sanctions 
and our willingness to impose sanctions when the rest of the world 
finds them unnecessary degrades our ability to convince other nations 
to follow our leadership.
  Congress' current infatuation with sanctions also hampers our 
nation's ability to conduct diplomacy. The Constitution gives Congress 
a powerful role in foreign policy, from the power to declare war to the 
power to regulate commerce. Clearly, Congress is within its 
Constitutional mandate when it imposes sanctions on foreign 
governments. What Congress cannot do, however, is micro-manage our 
foreign policy on a day to day basis. The power to negotiate with 
foreign governments and leaders rests solely with the President. 
Anything which detracts from his ability to negotiate, including 
sanctions over which he has no control over, damages his ability to 
exact concessions and come to an agreement acceptable to the United 
States.

  I am not arguing, Mr. President, that sanctions are not a legitimate 
foreign policy tool nor that, if used appropriately, they can be 
efficacious. Nor am I arguing that all sanctions currently in place 
should be removed. To the contrary, I strongly support sanctions 
against countries such as Iraq and Yugoslavia.
  Sanctions, however, should be part of a comprehensive foreign policy 
with clear goals. They should be imposed for a finite period of time 
with an option to extend if the situation warrants continued pressure. 
Finally, sanctions must allow the President and Secretary of State the 
room they need to maneuver in order to effectively negotiate foreign 
governments.
  It is also essential that we strive for multinational support of our 
sanctions. Board sanctions, either global or at least in concert with 
the other industrialized countries, not only have a far greater chance 
of affecting the desired result but minimize the threat to our 
international leadership, and domestic economy in both the short and 
long term.
  Occasionally, other nations take actions so offensive to American 
policy that the United States must act regardless of foreign 
cooperation. In those cases, we must endeavor to minimize the negative 
effects our sanctions have on third countries and on our own economy. 
We must also carefully target our sanctions at the offending government 
officials rather than the general population--people who often have 
little or no ability to affect meaningful change.
  Sanctions deserve a place, even a prominent place, in our foreign 
policy tool kit. Working with our allies, they can have the power 
President Wilson described shortly after witnessing the horrors of 
World War I. At the same time, Mr. President, we must not be so 
infatuated with sanctions as to replace tools which have stood us in 
such good stead for more than two centuries, such as diplomacy.
  The legislation that my colleagues and I are introducing today will 
make the sanctions we do impose more powerful and improve the results 
while simultaneously reducing the costs to Americans and our allies. In 
fact, Mr. President, these reforms will lead to a stronger American 
foreign policy capable of realizing our foreign policy goals more 
quickly and with less effort. This bill will allow us to finally reach 
the goal Congress held when it began imposing sanctions at this 
alarming pace. Mr. President, I urge my colleagues to join me in 
supporting this bipartisan resolution and enacting these overdue 
reforms.
 Mr. HAGEL. Mr. President, I am pleased to join with Senator 
Dodd in introducing the Sanctions Rationalization Act. This bill would 
grant broad authority to the President to waive unilateral sanctions 
that no longer make sense and that he determines harm U.S. national 
interests.
  Sanctions must remain a policy tool. But sanctions are only effective 
when they are multilateral.
  This bill will complete the package of three sanctions reform bills 
that have been introduced this Congress. Senator Dodd and I are 
sponsors or cosponsors of each of these three bills.
  The first of these three sanctions reform bills is S. 757, the 
Sanctions Policy Reform Act. This legislation, introduced by Senator 
Lugar would establish a sensible process for the enactment of future 
unilateral economic sanctions by either the President or the Congress. 
Among its safeguards, the Lugar bill would require a cost/benefit 
analysis and would require a study on the likelihood that the proposed 
sanctions would achieve their policy goals. It would also sunset all 
unilateral sanctions after two years unless reauthorized by Congress. 
The Lugar bill does not undo any existing sanctions, with one 
exception. It would make permanent the President's ability to waive the 
Glenn amendment for U.S. national security reasons. The Glenn amendment 
as originally drafted puts permanent unilateral sanctions on any 
country that tests a nuclear device.
  I introduced the second bill, which is S. 327, the Food and Medicine 
Sanctions Relief Act. Senator Dodd is the lead cosponsor on that bill. 
Food and medicine are basic humanitarian needs. As a matter of policy, 
food and medicine should not be included in unilateral sanctions. The 
President made a good first step in addressing this issue yesterday 
when he removed most, but not all, food and humanitarian goods from 
sanctions on Iran, Sudan and Libya. He did not lift restrictions on 
financing for agricultural sales, nor did he lift food and medicine 
sanctions on several other nations. He could not take these two 
additional steps because he is restricted from doing so by other 
legislation. My bill, S. 327, would enable him to adopt a comprehensive 
policy of exempting food and medicine from unilateral sanctions.
  The bill Senator Dodd and I are introducing today would also grant 
the President much broader authority to protect U.S. interests by 
waiving unilateral sanctions.
  The Sanctions Rationalization Act allows the President, with 
Congressional review, to ``delay, suspend or terminate'' any unilateral 
economic sanction if he determines that it ``does not serve U.S. 
national interests.'' A Presidential waiver under the Act cannot go 
into effect for 30 days. This gives the Congress ample time to consider 
the Presidential action. The bill establishes expedited procedures to 
ensure that Congress would have a chance to disapprove the Presidential 
waiver if the action is unwise.
  Finally, the legislation restricts the use of this Presidential 
waiver authority in specific cases. The President

[[Page S4461]]

cannot waive sanctions that are multilateral rather than unilateral. He 
is also restricted from waiving sanctions based on health or safety 
concerns, treaty obligations, and specific trade laws enacted to remedy 
unfair trade practices or market disruptions.
  As a nation, we are letting unilateral sanctions isolate ourselves. 
Let me demonstrate why:
  A CRS report on January 22, 1998 listed a total of 97 unilateral 
sanctions now in place.
  A study by the National Association of Manufacturers found that from 
1993-1996, the U.S. imposed unilateral sanctions 61 times against 35 
countries. These 35 nations make up 42% of world population and 19% of 
world's $790 billion export market.
  A study by the International Institute of Economics estimates that in 
1995 alone unilateral sanctions cost Americans $15-20 billion in lost 
exports . . . which resulted in 200,000 lost jobs.
  The National Foreign Trade Council has identified 41 separate 
legislative statutes on the books that either require or authorize the 
imposition of unilateral sanctions.
  Repeated use of sanctions undermines confidence in America as a 
reliable supplier. Even after sanctions are lifted, Americans find it 
difficult or impossible to regain export markets.
  Mr. President, each of the three bills I mentioned addresses an 
important feature of ending the overuse of unilateral economic 
sanctions. The Lugar bill would create a process for producing more 
effective sanctions policies for the future. The Hagel bill would 
exempt food and medicine from all unilateral economic sanctions. The 
Dodd bill is a final, critical reform. It would allow the President, 
with congressional review, to waive those sanctions laws that have 
become outdated and no longer serve U.S. national interests.
  Again, I congratulate my colleague from Connecticut for his 
leadership on this issue. I am pleased to join him in introducing the 
Sanctions Rationalization Act.
                                 ______