US/EU sanctions cause more than 500,000 deaths each year, mostly of children under five, reports Lancet
Motives for economic blockades are Western hegemony, regime change and censorship.
Sanctions, the deliberate crippling of an economy by foreign powers over time, kill by severely restricting imports of food, medicine, fuel, and other essentials. Sanctions are mostly silent killers; the dead bodies of victims don’t lie in the open like in bombed cities; they fade away, unseen and unheard, behind closed doors and crumbling systems.
Blockades are done either via financial mechanisms restricting trade, or with military seiges. A Saudi-led coalition naval blockade on Yemen from 2015 to 2022 contributed to tens of thousands of civilian deaths due to malnutrition, waterborne diseases, and the lack of access to healthcare. Picture source.
Researchers have found that half a million die each year from United States and European Union non-military blockades, roughly equivalent to combat and civilian deaths from wars. Most of the sanctions-related deaths in the five decades after 1970 were children under the age of five.
‘Woodrow Wilson referred to sanctions as “something more tremendous than war.” Our evidence suggests that he was right,’ authors Francisco Rodríguez, Silvio Rendón and Mark Weisbrot conclude in a new study published in the Vol 13 August 2025 edition of Lancet Global Health Journal.
‘It is hard to think of other policy interventions with such adverse effects on human life that continue to be pervasively used,’ the researchers wrote.
The United States has the most far-reaching powers to impose sanctions without the need of a military blockade, followed by the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United Nations.
Mainstream media outlets ignored the researchers’ findings released this year and funded by the US- based Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR.) Only Bloomberg and Business Standard have covered the report so far.
According to CEPR’s press release, ‘The study analyzes the health impact of economic sanctions using a dataset of age-specific mortality rates and sanctions events for 152 countries from 1971 to 2021. It finds a significant association between sanctions and increased mortality, with the “strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions…”’
Published this year, the study concluded that ‘We estimate that unilateral sanctions over this period [2010-21] caused 564 258 deaths per year…this human toll is roughly equivalent to total deaths from wars, including civilian casualties, and is more than the annual number of battle-related casualties.’
Unilateral sanctions are those imposed by individual countries outside the framework of the United Nations Security Council, and therefore are considered illegal.
Weaponising the US dollar
The US’ dollar is used for most international transactions. It is also used as a weapon, replacing the need for a costly military siege involving troops on the ground or at sea.
A favoured method is to put pressure on SWIFT, the world’s main international payment system, to stop transactions with sanctioned countries as a condition of continued dealings with US banks. In 2012, the US Congress passed Section 220 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act which threatened sanctions on SWIFT if it didn’t disconnect Iranian banks. The BRICS countries are attempting to create alternatives to SWIFT as a matter of urgency.
Trade blockades are enforced in various ways:
Enforcing sanctions through penalties issued by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and equivalent offices in other countries.
Placing economic sanctions on third party countries that trade with blockaded countries (so called ‘secondary sanctions.’)
Freezing assets and reserves held in Western banks. The most well known example is when western capitals blocked Russia’s access to more than $300bn of foreign exchange reserves. Russia’s strong economy has not been affected.
Which countries are sanctioned
Here is the US’ current list of some of the poorest countries in the world under comprehensive or selected sanctions imposed by the United States (US,) often in conjunction with the United Kingdom (UK,) European Union (EU.):
Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, North Korea, Somalia, South Sudan, Venezuela and Yemen. Selected sanctions on individual leaders in Western Balkans ( Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.)
Additionally, the EU imposes either comprehensive or selected sanctions on Belarus, Burundi, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Mali, Moldovia, Montenegro, Myanmar (Burma,) Niger, Tunisia, Turkiye, Ukraine, Zimbabwe.
According to the CEPR researchers, the US and EU blockades have caused the most deaths. The numbers of blockades whether military or economic, have increased over the years.
Cuba has been blocked by the US for 60 years causing widespread suffering. 27 resolutions at the United Nations General Assembly call on the US government to put an end, without any conditions, to its blockade policy against Cuba. Picture source.
Motives of Western sanctions: geopolitical, regime change and censorship
Stated objectives of Western sanctions range from counter-terrorism, national security and foreign policy goals, to promoting human rights and restoring democracy.
Critics say these are fig leaf justifications that disguise coercive measures against countries and individuals that challenge US-led Western hegemony and foreign policy.
As evidence, critics point to Western double standards. Countries friendly to the US are not punished for documented human rights violations (Brazil, Egypt, India, Philippines, Qatar. Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates. ) The most infamous example is the non-sanctioning of Israel despite widespread media coverage of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, where children are being starved to death. The Zionist state has blocked Gaza for 18 years, since 2007.
Most countries placed under sanctions are those that resist Western influence, or tilt toward China, Russia, or non-Western blocs, and/or pursue self-determination. Prominent examples are Cuba, Venezuela, Syria under Assad, Nicaragua, Iran and North Korea. From 1991 to 2003, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died due to United Nations sanctions, designed to stop a non-existent weapons of mass destruction program.
Leaders in Western Balkans who have expressed pro-Russian opinions are targeted individually such as Milorad Dodik of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia. The EU imposes blockades on Mali and Niger, former colonies that expelled French troops and have sought Russian military assistance.
The authors of the CEPR study charge that the desired goal of US sanctions is to create a humanitarian disaster that will provoke regime change:
‘US sanctions …often aim to create conditions conducive to regime change or shifts in political behaviour, with the deterioration of living conditions in target countries in some cases being acknowledged by policy makers as part of the intended mechanism through which objectives are to be attained.’
Sanctions are also used to restrict free speech. For example, the US has placed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the UN rapporteur on Palestine, and an outspoken critic of the US-supported Israeli genocide in Gaza. The US State Department stated on its website that ‘Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States.’ No evidence was provided for these claims.
Conclusion
Governments of countries typically don’t change behavior despite decades of crippling sanctions, as we see in North Korea, Venezuela and Iran. The poor masses seek relief by emigrating to neighouring and Western countries. For example, the US and EU blockade of Venezuela’s oil sector contribute to an ongoing economic crisis, which has led to the emigration of an estimated 7 million Venezuelans. Ironically, sanctions backfire on US policy. Caracas has turned to China and Russia for financial and trade assistance - alliances the US wants to prevent.