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In RealTime posts, PIIE senior staff and colleagues discuss the fast-moving economic news, financial developments, and public policy choices confronting the United States and the world.
On Thursday March 7, the United Nations Security Council approved Resolution 2094, imposing a new round of sanctions against North Korea in response to its underground nuclear test last month. The penalties include some measures we have seen in the past–such as designating individuals and companies–but also some new curbs on North Korean trade and [...]
More than a month after North Korea fired a missile in contravention of two existing UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions, the Security Council passed UNSC Resolution 2087, condemning the use of ballistic missile technology in launch and saying the “act violated United Nations sanctions, expresses determination to take ‘significant action’ in event country proceeds with [...]
Back in 1992, Congress enacted the Iraq-Iran Non-Proliferation Act—the first in a long parade of Congressional acts and Presidential executive orders designed to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Reinforced by extensive cooperation from US allies, the most recent measure, the Threat Reduction Act of August 2012, has imposed crippling sanctions on Iran’s banking system and oil [...]
North Korea executed its highly anticipated missile launch and with its failure managed to achieve the second worst outcome imaginable. (The worst would have been hitting China.) The North Koreans have managed in a single stroke to not only defy the UN Security Council, the United States, and even their patron China, but also demonstrate [...]
Sanctions are a complex technology with correspondingly complex macro- and microeconomic as well as political effects. Iran is currently facing quite draconian oil-related sanctions, most notably the EU decision in January 2012, to wind down purchases of Iranian crude oil by July 1, 2012. But the country has also been hit by a wave of [...]
Washington and Brussels are trying to curb Iranian oil revenue in a bid to convince Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. But it appears financial sanctions imposed by the West are having a more immediate impact on what Iran buys from abroad rather than what it sells. Reports this week suggest Iranian companies are [...]
Everyone wants Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, but few urge a military strike. Financial sanctions, including several directed at leading Iranian banks, have been applied and tightened over the years by the United States Treasury, working with European and other allies. Now the Senate has unanimously approved a bill calling on the President [...]
Adam Thomson, in the Financial Times on July 10, writes of the coup in Honduras as an echo of 1980s violence in Central America. But, in fact, the past is not as distant as much of the coverage of the coup suggests and the seemingly forgotten autogolpe, or “self coup” in Guatemala in 1993 may [...]
The United Nations Security Council voted today on a new round of sanctions on North Korea. These sanctions are politically significant, particularly in signaling the changing attitude of Beijing toward developments on the peninsula. However, it is highly unlikely that the sanctions, in themselves, will have immediate effect on North Korea’s nuclear program or the [...]