Post

1/ "Secondary Sanctions" - What are they, and how do they work? Since Donald Trump is floating them against Russia's trading partners, and with absolutely no expectation he won't change his mind again next week and declare Zelenskyy the real villain, I thought I'd do a (long, sorry) explainer.

2/ First, what are sanctions? Sanctions are rules that make it illegal for my citizens to conduct certain forms of business with whomever the sanctions target. Who they apply to (targets), and what kind of business they cover (scope), can be vary in breadth.

4/ Sanctions tend to have a range of objectives: a) Symbolically signalling outrage and punitive intent; b) Denying a state weapons or the inputs it needs to make weapons; c) Applying economic pressure toward policy changes or regime change

5/ I should note at this point that this can all get hideously complicated for business to navigate, and governments to enforce. Eg. Banks and other financial entities have to spend millions on "Know Your Customer" stuff to make sure they're not accidentally doing business with sanctioned entities.

6/ Moreover, once you sell a good to a 3rd party it's generally out of your hands. There are limits to how much you can reasonably expect the seller of a microchip to vet a potential client to make sure they're not going to onsell it to someone who onsells it to someone who onsells it to Russia.