Rubbish..

 

There is a grow­ing body of evid­ence that sanc­tions can impose severe human­it­arian costs on inno­cent civil­ian popu­la­tions. Stud­ies show that sanc­tions have wreaked signi­fic­ant harm in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Syria, lead­ing to adverse health impacts like malnu­tri­tion and increased infant mortal­ity. 

Targeted sanc­tions, such as those imposed on human rights offend­ers under the Global Magnit­sky Act, more easily avoid such collat­eral damage. But compre­hens­ive sanc­tions program­s—those that target entire coun­tries or govern­ment­s—can be devast­at­ing; some have labeled them “finan­cial carpet bomb­ing.” By one estim­ate, there have been tens of thou­sands of deaths due to sanc­tions.

The U.S. govern­ment often grants licenses to enable the provi­sion of human­it­arian aid to areas affected by sanc­tions. But these licenses can be narrow in their concep­tion of human­it­arian assist­ance for instance, by not includ­ing civil­ian energy infra­struc­ture and delayed in imple­ment­a­tion. 

Moreover, because the penal­ties for viol­at­ing sanc­tions are so immense, the private sector routinely “over-complies” with sanc­tions and shies away from trans­act­ing with targets even when a license is gran­ted. 

A recent U.S. Govern­ment Account­ab­il­ity Office report on Venezuela sanc­tions found that all nine of the U.S. Agency for Inter­na­tional Devel­op­ment imple­ment­ing part­ners in that coun­try had banks close their accounts or reject trans­ac­tions, despite being permit­ted to deliver human­it­arian aid.

So we crush a country, and gave a little leftover to the few. Just a "famine" thought.