Foreign Affairs Magazine Admits Defeat of US Sanctions

Orinoco Tribune, Febrary 6, 2023 — Foreign Affairs, one of the most influential US establishment magazines, recently published an analysis explaining how sanctions are rapidly losing their effectiveness as a weapon in Washington’s global domination arsenal.

This conclusion is reached after an assessment of recent US sanctions on countries like China and Russia, whose way of getting around them was to “create alternative global financial structures to insulate themselves and others from punitive action, and that Washington and its acolytes will no longer be able to force countries to do their bidding, let alone destroy dissenting states, through such measures in the very near future,” wrote RT analyzing the article.

The opinion piece by Agathe Demarais highlights that sanctions have long been powerful diplomatic weapons but are currently in the twilight of their effectiveness. “The golden days of US sanctions may soon be over,” it says.

This golden age coincides with the greatest US economic growth after World War II. A time when, due to its geopolitical influence, the US could paralyze any and all foreign economies.

What happened now? During its reign, the dollar was imposed as the global exchange currency, so it was not difficult to dominate. However, the states subjected to such pressures began to look for alternatives, even prompting them to establish exchanges between the “sanctioned” states with currencies other than the dollar. On this path, Beijing and Moscow lead the charge to create financial innovations to diminish the US advantage.

Some examples:

• In 2020, Beijing settled more than half of its annual trade with Moscow in currencies other than the dollar.
• In the same year, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, led by China and Russia, officially prioritized the development of payments in the local currencies of its members.
• The alternative to SWIFT, the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System, was created.
• Similarly, China is expanding the reach of the digital renminbi, the currency issued by Beijing’s central bank, at home and abroad.

Foreign Affairs bitterly concludes that this trend is irreversible. Countries are becoming less and less dependent on the dollar, and multipolarity is an alternative to the annihilating US imperial vision.