CHAPTER NINETEEN
Foreign Policy

Take a Position

Read the "Foreign Policy Instruments" section in the chapter, in particular the subsection about economic instruments. The United States currently has imposed economic sanctions of a variety of types on some other countries-some quite severe, as in the case of the embargo of Cuba.

Take a position: Should we use economic sanctions as a foreign policy tool?

As you develop your argument, answer the following questions:

• In our own private lives, we sometimes decide not to buy a certain company's product if we don't care for their labor practices, for example. Should the United States exercise the same kind of judgment about the countries it does business with?
• Should the United States use its power advantage to try to alter the behavior of other countries? Does it make sense to use our economic power to try to alter another country's human rights violations, or to promote democratic transitions?
• Given that sanctions tend to hurt those who are already the least wealthy and powerful in a target state, and rarely actually "hurt" the ruling class whose policies we are trying to change, is the use of economic sanctions in our best interests? Might harming the people of another country play right into the hands of leaders in that country because they can use anti-American rhetoric as a way to drum-up political support?
• Could the net effect of our sanctions be that U.S. businesses lose out to foreign companies in countries on which we have imposed sanctions.meaning American workers lose out?
• How do you decide whether imposing sanctions is worth the cost? If you like the idea of sanctions as a foreign policy tool, how can they be used in more effective, rather than less effective, ways?