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tv   Atlantic Council Discussions on Sanctions  CSPAN  February 19, 2019 10:03am-12:06pm EST

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>> good morning, everybody. welcome to the morning devoted to sanciton. -- to sanctions. it is a great turnout for a tuesday morning and it seems that as long as the atlantic council does the sanctions program, none of us doing it will ever be lonely. [laughter] sanctions are a used and some say misused tool and sanctions are discussed usually in connection with a particular policy, so russia's sanctions, today we ares -- discussing a lot of this but also the use of and potential abuse of the sanctions tool. is going to be moderated by my colleague, former colleague from government it, now colleague at the
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atlantic council samantha. she was one of the designers of the sanctions policy. the now, she is over here at the atlantic council. her last work done with brian o , also a colleague, everything you need to know about the new russia sanctions bill which was introduced last week -- that is available in hard copy here as is brian's piece with one of our panelists on a larger look about sanctions , a strategic look on point to our topic today. that is also available here in hard copy. i commend them and i will shamelessly flog atlantic council products. we tried to give the best that peopleilable
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do not pay $20,000 a pop for and it is actually better than what people are paying $20,000 a pop for anyway. we pride ourselves on that and the atlantic council sanctions team is populated mostly by actual practitioners of sanctions policy. people who have had to work with it and it is run on a daily the organization west put together the event today. that is enough for me, you will hear from me later and to now, it is my pleasure to turn things over to samantha. [applause] >> thank you.
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as we are now midway through the trump administration, panel if you like to join me, thank you -- there is a great deal to take stock of. we will limit our discussion today to the sanctions issues along. sanctions have become the tool du jour for the special of the day has never changed. they play an essential role in u.s. from a policies on russia, iran, venezuela, and many others. to assess the use of the sanctions tool, we have a very knowledgeable panel that i would like to take the opportunity to introduce now. , ms. is the deputy chief admission at the embassy of chief admissions in washington dc she is a chief diplomat. she also previously served as a speech writer further minister of foreign affairs.
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a nonresident senior fellow at the atlantic council's global energy center. and a partner at a law firm wary he focuses on sanctions and other international trade issues. he previously served in various positions at the state department and with the director for economic and international affairs. next we have kerry. ,he focuses on sanctions anti-money laundering, anti-bribery, and corruption. berkeley'smember of legal pro bono team, and providing mentors for women. open our panel by looking at where sanctions have been effective and the positive lessons learned from those experiences. there are a few key lessons that
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our team at the atlantic council's economic sanctions initiative assesses to be main priorities. first, that multilateral sanctions are far more effective than unilateral. only asctions are effective as the policy that is tactful and thoughtful. strategic patient and when implementing sanctions. and that sanctions are most effective when they can be recalibrated to reflect shifting policy priorities and changing facts on the ground. in considering these two takeaways from sanctions, let's look at positive examples or success stories. while the trump administration has been comfortably ahead of allies and imposing they have been done in coordination with allies. the eu and canada have also imposed targeted sanctions and the lima group has called on the venezuelan military to recognize
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juan guaido as interim president. what is your perspective on the top administration's abilities to capitalize on these positives ? do you want to start? >> sure. i think venezuela has really -- has an been a success story with the impact really being felt by the markets, whether that was the u.s. intention to have it felt by u.s. investors, you are definitely seeing where previously, they had smart sanctions, but you have seen that they have even enhanced the venezuela sanctions. they provide more guidance, so i definitely see the coordination not just with multi national, but also the coordination between ofac and and andrew
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street groups that are reaching out and providing feedback in terms of the sanctions. would like to echo the pointed also the introduction that you made emphasizing that if you can do it in a way, we feel the effectiveness of sanctions are more likely. it is veryoremost, important that there is unity of purpose when you decide on sanctions and the more unity of on top you can guarantee of imposing additional sanction regimes that the u.s. has done in cases of russia and venezuela, unity purpose is something that is really important. also when it comes to the kind of sanctions you would like to factornt, another key
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for effectiveness is implementation because as long that is a sanction regime, is just not good enough and for the netherlands, it is very regiment that sanction agreed is also implemented and we try to also reach out to other countries. undid that we were on the security council last year to also help them and addressing intacles they face implementation when it came to building and we also contributed to various products of the state department implemented so it is very important to have that unity and it also means that in text andrity legislation that is introduced on top of multilateral. we sometimes struggle with that with all of our companies on the european side because you have
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to admit that in certain cases, there is a certain degree or certain amount of ambiguity text which is understandable because it gives the administration room to move. that can be very needed, but it does cause an impact on companies. feelingen, even the that the sanctions are up in the air already has a chilling effect on companies and transactions and operations that they are planning so for us, this is an issue that we are often confronted with that we try to also reach out to the u.s. administration to seek but we willance leave that for later in the discussion. when it comes to venezuela, we also regard that as a positive example of good cooperation. and we have had a lot of experience
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in the un security council that have been quite ineffective in sanctions. my view on venezuela is that it actually is a great example of learning a lot of the lessons that i think the administration in many ways has fell down on over the last two years. obviously, we do not know what the end game is. we do not know how this will play out. but i think there are at least a two factors that are present here that have not been present in some of the other regimes. coherent is a foreign-policy goal. what is the outcome that the administration seeks? economic pain is only an immediate goal of sanctions. if that is only the full, it is not the goal of the sanctions regime. isming the iranian economy
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not the foreign-policy goal ultimately of the united states. it is behavior change of the regime. with venezuela, the difference has been the administration has articulated what the actual outcome we seek is. and then work backwards on how we deploy tools to achieve it. the other big difference we see with the venezuelan regime is in sanctions as only part of an entire coherent policy strategy. we have seen situations like with iran where sanctions, unilateral sanctions appear to be the primary tool of the foreign-policy to seek broad behavior change. we have seen russia where a strong sanction policy and strategy seems to be the --ndalone tool and messaging in messaging that is diluted by
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the president's on statements, but with venezuela, we have seen a multilateral approach, we have seen not only a multilateral sanctions approach but diplomatic approach and we have seen the use of tools like recognizing the guaido government. we have seen sanctions be the chaseo kind of follow and these broader statement of policy. seek to recognize another government, that we seek to ensure that they have the resources available to them to assume governance of the country. and how do these sanctions actually pushed that more broadly. venezuela, there is a long way to go before we see how it actually plays out, but i think what we are seeing in real time in a much more savvy deployment.
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mrs. sultoon: thank you, i would like to pick out a point which is that the concept is more sophisticated and modern sanctions and the use of waivers, to calibrate sanctions and more targeted fashion like we saw historically in the obama administration with cuba, but recently with the iran waivers and some of the other russia sanctions. to seealso be helpful your context and your assessment and whether these are actually creating smarter and more effective sanctions and what that does particularly for kerry on the ample mentation side -- implementation side. kerry it is definitelyl -- kerry: it is definitely more challenging. atforces you to have to look the market, he is a look at the
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people who trade to see whether it falls in line and that is a very careful analysis that certain areas of financial institution or certain industry groups have not been familiar with. having to dice those industries, that certainly is a little bit more challenging than having a blake and restriction against. -- having a blanket restriction against. i think i'm lamenting on the ground is a limit more cumbersome with the sanctions. >> in principle, it is good to have a more targeted sanction and the systems of waiver, it allows for more tailor-made however, still my earlier remark about the killer ready that is needed also goes for the waiver system. what to be very clear
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would be allowed and what would not be allowed, what would the process be if they approach treasury, so it is not always quite clear what the process would need, and meanwhile, there is already an impact felt on company's decision-making or the psychological sense of the word. principle, these waiver systems can make a positive contribution to a more tailor-made and more effective sanctions regime, but then, yeah , it is still hard to elaborate on the nuts and bolts. >> i will absolutely agree with that. , think i will just add that the development of sanctions over the last decade, certainly over the last years, has gotten more of the nuance, more
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especially with the birth of the secondary sanction around 2000 and nine into two dozen 10 -- and sanction around -- sanction 2010 and we saw unprecedented level of general licensing two weeks ago and they are getting better at this. they are getting more nuanced than the more smarter, more consequencesat the could be, how do we address those. a whole of government approach dealing with international affairs and treasury in understanding the economic consequences. the risks are though, and i do not think they are there yet, but the risks are moving in a way to quickly.
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obviously, this is job security for compliance teams, but if opec becomes too nuanced to quickly, it may overtake companies ability to comply. i think we are seeing some of this and over derisking. we were certainly guilty of this in the last administration in developing sanctions, the assumption that companies would go right up to the line and to not go over it. what was legal, they would do, what was an illegal, they would not do. therefore, to make our economic assessments based on what we are going to make legal, but the reality is that is not where companies draw the line. what their compliance resources look like a what their risk profiles look like -- obviously, you draw the line in different places. that is from the compliant side of opec, that is what opec recommends.
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is that somety companies are taking a much more conservative approach, pulling back further than the people who are designing the sanctions actually intend. twould sort of suggest things that i think could improve the situation here. opec'ss, investing in implementation resources. obviously, opec is under great demand again. this is something we were guilty of in the last administration. we need the new executive order here and we need a new sanctions anime here, that puts incredible strain on ofac. mini, literally sleepless nights with a designation steam to devel -- designations team to develop
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those. but in the meantime, they need specific guidance on specific situations and ensuring that ofac has the resources, the personnel, the time, and the toey to devote implementation, it is just as important as putting those sanctions programs in place to begin with. the other thing i would recommend again from an outsider's perspective is consistency. what we have seen between sanctions programs is somew hat of a lack of consistency. companyalk to a foreign , foreign lawyers even, they will say, in iran, it is prohibited to export oil from iran. no, it is not prohibited with the involvement of a u.s. person, it may be subject to secondary sanctions, knowing
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that nuances important, but what is clear is the messaging from the administration that has been, if it is subject to secondary sanctions, do not do it. but compare that to the implementation of the russia sanctions. sanctionable to facilitate we have notion, but seen any significant implementation of that provision. we have seen inconsistent does that mean that the foreign company should be avoiding it entirely -- we know that there is a risk of itondary sanction, certainly is not perceived by foreign companies at the same level of risk as dealing and iranian, crude exports for example. that lack of consistency means that the next sanctions regime, it will come out and companies will say, well, how do we treat
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this one? is this a russia like program, iran like program, and companies will look more to the president's press conferences and a will to the actual law. theink that really dilutes impacts of the law and the power of the law that when the sanctions get put out, companies turns to them and says, i understand i can do this, i cannot do that, i understand that i will face the threat of sanctions by do this -- if i do this. so those sanctions to be effective, they need to come to understand exactly what those risks are in a consistent way. do you agree that company's in general tends to over comply or they derisk? david: yeah, absolutely. majore seen some of these
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derisking. we have seen in the caribbean, somalia, we have seen banks say, it is not worth the cost of compliance. ause -- if i have to call a massive compliance team to review every transaction, or the outside counsel every time there is a transaction, is it really worth my time and it is a business calculation. if you are spending more money on compliance, then you are making off of the business, why o it? even if u.s. policy perspective, it is really important to have commercial banking available in the caribbean.
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is really important that for the implementation of u.s. policy, someone is processing payments for food and medicine being sent to iran. if you do not have other companies doing those things, then u.s. policy is not properly being implemented. i do think there is an economic factor tied to do it and a consistent method could be helpful, but i wonder if it is backwards. if it is whether the economic impact of driving consistency of the message. where you see that iran might not be as involved in the global economy and there is a stronger position taken against iran and not wanting to go to that line of thing -- line of secondary sanctions, but russia agree, it creates challenges in terms of driving your policy and understanding what your risk tolerance will be. if anyone is reading the tea
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leaves following the last administration, you probably would not have a policy going right up to the line with iran because you knew that likely, there be a snapback that occurs. wentu are a company that still scale into iran and you have to unwind agreements that you may have entered into, that is going to definitely present a burden that you may have been able to avoid. i think there is a couple of to having in addition some consistency in terms of guidance given, there is also the economic factor and what sanctions regimes have a global impact on the economy. there is a great point. , you are right, the economic interests are going to drive the implementation with iran. it is very different.
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i would just say right the law that way. [laughter] david: it is very difficult for a company to design a compliance product around talking points. i think the administration, administrations needed to ensure that whatever they want the outcome to be, i would design a law around that and not just the talking points. you brought up snapback, i think that is a great example of where was done well. there was a very clear statement of, this is the law now. if we end up in the scenario is iniran does not -- material noncompliance, the
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snapback, this will be the law afterward. there was a very clear statement as to what that would be, what's waiver is would be withdrawn, -- as what that would be, and it was ridiculously complicated, but that is an example of it being done well. and then companies could make that risk assessment and say, knowing what the situation could be in the future, is it worth the risk? if you say that snapback was done well from a u.s. perspective, that is unacceptable. [laughter] legal design of snapback was done well, let's put it that way. after the munich security conference, there is
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not much more to be added to that, but we would disagree on that, yeah. [laughter] not suggesting the policy decision to trigger snapback was a good one. just that what it was designed back in 2014, it was done with great clarity. if i could shift years the slightly, looking at the impact of the overuse of sanctions, given the prolific use in the last few years, what is the assessment looking forward as to how sanctions are affecting the use of the u.s. dollar. and what gold a u.s. financial system is likely to have going forward to given things like the development of the spv and where in spv currently stands
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terms of policy concerns the but thets to address, broad decision for the trump administration's unilaterally to withdraw from jspcoa is what prompted a discussion in the first place. and some european companies to .o business it in euros do you think this is likely to drive a rise in a use of other currencies and crypto currencies, etc.? the dollar is still cash is king. at the moment, i do not see that changing, but if you are looking to head in 20 years or so, the development of crypto, the interest of several companies away from the dollar, you can see that there may be certain alliances not placed on
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the u.s. dollar anymore and where would be beneficial for countries to use other forms of currency whether it is another denomination or crypto currency to enable them to process transactions. see definitely developments in the crypto currency world, but you can be where the dollar will be chipped away. i think the spv does that. which the u.s.t government may not be as that, but what about all world transactions in another currency. you can see where when other industries if they adopt the same approach, there may be some impact of the u.s. economy. that will certainly be something that is concerning. the u.s. dollar is the preferred role currency, but you do see companies are moving away from it just because of the problems with sanctions.
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heleen: in general, it should concern us if transactions would start circumventing u.s. dollar international finance system. if that starts happening, we start losing track of those transactions and we might not have good oversight of what is going on outside of our purview. it was also an important argument for the european union toauschwitz, and we want keep this outside of the reign of sanctions. because the financial transaction, i've invalid also be at a loss in general. david: a couple of thoughts on the spv which i think is fascinating, so bear with me. [laughter] david: we have also got to be honest about what the spv is. the spv is not circumvention of
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the dollar. from what we can see, it is not even circumvention of u.s. sanctions. simplypears to be is moving financial transactions with iran from one european -- european financial institution to another. we are not seeing a situation countries and company's a moving away from the dollar, but it was generally prohibited to do business with iran in dollars . it is currently generally prohibited to do business with iran and dollars. none of that has changed because of the jcpsoa. what we are seeing with the spv, what has been discussed is that it is intended to facilitate trade, and we have seen a vehicle to avoid derisking.
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if european banks do not want a process these transactions with iran, the spv will. frankly, that is good for u.s. policy because u.s. policy is to allow you manage terry and trade with iran -- humanitarian trade with iran. i do not think it is a sign of the weakening of the dollar and the dominance. right now, there are certain er -- that dooad not endanger the dollar based on the current use of sanctions on escalated use of sanctions until we do something really and truly extreme. on thatefer to jack lew and he has the broader perspective. i will say though, aside from that, i think realistically there are two risks on the spv.
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the spv, it is not a particularly effective way to avoid sanctions. it is not a legal invasion tactic, or at least not an effective one. what it is is a pretty bold have the statement to european foreign ministers wreath at the the un's general assembly and say, we are going to launch this project because we disagree with u.s. policy. that is what is astonishing about the schism between u.s. and european policy. theink the other issue with spv is long-standing. it is not effective at avoiding sanctions and is goes back to a point that brian and i make in
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the piece that is sitting outside which is that the real risk in the near term of misuse or overuse of sanctions is not the threat to the dominance of the dollar. it is a threat to the effectiveness of sanctions and the tools themselves continuing to be impactful. if you can find ways around it, it is not going to diminish the rules of the dollar. what it will do is make it harder for the united states to have this leverage to use sanctions to have this tool. the spv is not going to work in that respect, at least in the way it is currently designed. but if you have and countries consistently prodding because u.s. policy is so contrary to their own views, if you continue to prod, you will find something that works at some point. theink it goes back to point, the best way forward is multilateral to guard against
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global credibility of u.s. sanctions to ensure that we do not have people trying so hard to find ways around them. picking up on the point about schisms -- mrs. sultoon: one of their major point about schisms is the u.s. congress against the president. in the russia context but also more broadly, one of the most recent examples a section 216 which demands that congress has opportunity to review any decision by the executives to lose sanctions. head veryto a recently the decision by the andnistration to delist aluminum giant and its holding company. considering this increasing role of congress and sanctions and
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their decision to increasingly insert themselves in the of limitation process and beyond just looking at the policy side alone, what is your assessment in terms of the impact. the ability to make those decisions more unilateral? does this represent and overstep of congress possible role or is an appropriate check and balance. looking for you, david. [laughter] yeah, it is really fascinating. on russia, it is been really fascinating, but it is not new. we had a strong congressional interest in iran during the environment station -- the obama administration, and congress has been leading itself repeatedly through legislation. legislation was in place company administration implemented it in good faith.
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so the russian legislation is that congress's involvement is not new, but i think it is true that the type of involvement is new. w,viously the derisking is ne something that the administration was against the ability of congress to sort of throw sanctions, changes down to review them. and i think there is some real danger here, and the administration and ofac needs to be able to move nimbly, and move on substance not on politics. andintersection of politics what we saw was on the substance
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, the success of sanctions and a to be a will to get out from under sanctions, you really must diminish your time with sanction individuals with russia oligarchs and send a message to other oligarchs, that you could end up negotiating away your control of your empire. however, we are dealing in a situation where the message from the president is completely inconsistent with that. thet is not surprising that congress would have concerns over what the administration might do with respect to russia. and to want to act as a check on that. was a failure of put thosestration to two issues together and realize that there would be real be real, there would
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interest congress on what the it administration was doing on removing russian companies from the list. there may have been an assumption that it was low-key to issue that notice the congress on december 19, right before the holidays and the swearing in of the new congress. but i think it had the complete opposite affect in creating great skepticism from the hill regarding whether this was substantively good and justified at a strong step on sanctions allowing in a russian oligarch to scathing way -- to stay away relatively unscathed. that was not well explained, neither to the hill. i think frankly as a result of -- a obviously we saw
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piece that came yesterday. doubt, we are going to see continued involvement, especially -- and this is true for future administrations as well. especially where there is a disagreement between the administration and congress on and that can go well if we are in a situation here where there is time to consider a vision and consider what is going to be effective, receive input from the administration, outsiders, or you end up in a situation like a car -- like cat qa
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is really a danger i think. from a european perspective, we long consider the russian sanctions as a transatlantic unity example. especially from 2014 on when the crimea sanctions were put in place and the european union had this mechanism with ed lee extended every six months and there was a clear purpose that russia's sticks to the agreement. -- alwayse also working very closely and very much appreciated that cooperation. we also find that there's been are challenging and this is result of an much intensified conversations, not just with the administration but also with , and congress is an
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important to machine of sanctions legislation. sometimes in these conversations from a european perspective, you -- it is good to you have imposed economic and diplomatic , and the impact of those sanctions is fell in the eu. carried a much heavier economic burden than the u.s. would in the sanctions against russia. our imports for russia are almost half, and they declined in the same period by 25%. exports with a similar trend between 2013 2017, you are exports -- eu exports to russia declined. there is that economic impact of which also makes sense because
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andeographical distance more intense trade and investment relations. but that emphasizes that we have felt the impact of those sanctions. the eu has also since working with the u.s. and relating to chemical weapons. the eu has moved it to instate fiber sanctions and is working sanctions.r there is not i have any from our side -- there is no night have a aivete from our side. when it comes to the secondary ,anctions and collateral damage we have seen that quite clearly
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a lot of outreach between eu and european member states to congress and administration stood to make the same points. in the future, we will continue eventually,ecause it is more effective if we can work together and have that transatlantic unity that we always used to have in the sanction regime. kerri-ann: just add one other point to that which would be, i think it is here because of this administration. what you have seen is over being transparent about what it takes to get you off the list. i do not think we have had that level of transparency before and whether it sets a resident or the information out there with the congress coming to such a close vote to disagreeing with the delisting,
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that creates uncertainty. before, youdelisted delisted. here when you have a party weighing in, it creates a little bit of uncertainty for companies that want to do business with the individual, they have to take a risk-based approach because it is not necessarily clear and convincing that this person or entity should be completely th -- completel y devout of sanctions. i think that is what we have seen in the checks and balance in congress and the administration. i will refrain from commenting on the congress's role and go to the audience for a public you and day. -- s yourself please
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interdigital yourself please, so we'll try to limit it to one question per person. >> i am barbara and i direct the future of it iran initiative here at the council, and i would like to ask the panel to try to get into the head of mike pence and mike pompeo when they invade spv, because i think the europeans have made it very clear that initially this is to -- is going to be just for authorized transactions, for those that do not violate the sanctions. that really surprised by it also their demand that europeans leave the iran nuclear deal. why do you think that is the case and how you respond to that? thanks. merkel i think angela gave the best response to that and munich over the weekend. let's face it.
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it is clear that we do not see i oa, and unilateral withdrawal from that agreement. this iseuropean union, a security concern and our national security is at stake. we have always regarded the deal , maybe not as a perfect solution, but at least as an agreement that we are fully on board. it is also been clear in our response that we maintain sticking to the jcpoa. it is also clear what the u.s. policy -- in terms of the overall policy of isolating iran and putting sanctions back on the table and in that sense, forcing iran back to the negotiation table. the european union is blind to iran isr things that
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doing in the region, human rights abuses, and ballistic missiles, but they are all outside of the scope of the jcpoa. we value that agreement that was made and came about together with the u.s. with the previous administration. get into the head of -- i do not think i'm going to go there. [laughter] heleen: i think it is clear that we do not see i and that is all salt -- see -- i do not think that we see eye to eye. [laughter] i defer to heleen on the european approach, but obviously, there is a total stalemate on views and that is
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not going to change anytime soon. i think what we saw in munich was the cementing of positions. europeans are going to go forward, and we are going to reimpose sancto -- sanctions. that is the glass half full of that -- that has settled into an equilibrium. there are going to be threats of sanctions against european companies that are doing business in iran, but iran is still in the deal. at the end of the day, that is a positive thing that iran is in compliance with the jcpoa. there is a lot of other things that we need to address at iran that are pretty horrific. but them not developing a nuclear weapon, that has got to be good news. introduce yourself
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and your affiliation, we would appreciate it. >> good morning, i am paula stern and a longtime member of the atlantic council. would you talk about the intersection of our sanctions with regard to the u.s.-european alliance? in other words, does the preoccupation right now with the jcpoa and the activities regarding the sanctions take away from the attention that the u.s. and the eu have had on the russian sanctions with regard as you said to the illegal annexation of crimea?
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what is that doing to u.s. sanctions policy? is it lessening attention, is a diverting us, is a pulling apart the alliance when you are ofusing on this new set policies articulated by the viap administration visi iran? clearly, sanctions and regimes on important tool for both the u.s. and the european many lines of communication between the european union and the u.s. as aistration foreign-policy tool. i do not think that is necessarily affecting whether we one particular on
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aspect leading to diversion of attention other aspects. a conversation is still happening and will continue to engage in that constructively. not too pessimistic in that regard. people talk about pulling apart the transatlantic relationships -- yeah, let's not go there. we are not in that place and we should make absolutely certain that we do not get to that place. so keep up the good work. >> i think you mentioned that there are places where we have strong -- heleen: absolutely, a very close
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between the state department, treasury, ofac on guidances, on various pieces of legislation that are floating, so that is absolutely a conversation that is happening. we will take one more question. it has been five years since the legal annexation of crimea, and you mentioned the difficulties over in enforcing and ample mentation of russia related -- implementation of russia related sanctions. -- do you think kerri, they talk on the a --
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kerri-ann: the administration some clearo clasp objectives on what their ongoing intention will be in regards to andia, but that will remain whether we see circumvention of that program, i cannot predict what will happen, but i think that was one of the clear objectives that had global supportedo that was across the eu, u.s., and i think that crimea program is something that we have a commonality on. as the u.s. developed different interests and targets russia, that might be wary see a divergence in the global community in regards to russia. david: i will add my agreement. the one area of russia sanctions where the strongest level of implementation and coordination
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europe is on crimea and russian interference in eastern ukraine. seen u.s. sanctions on russia possible in syria -- russia's involvement in syria, and there are whole host of issues that the sanctions are now responding to. would be thations twofold, one is more realistic than the other, but it is a clear distinction from the administration about -- and congress as well -- about what sanctions directly want. if we intend sanctions that have an impact on russia's behavior and which i think i have given my arguments on why i believe that has been the case in the past, then we need to be very clear are layingwe
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down tensions for. we know the executive order from 2014, the crimea embargo, obviously that has to do with crimea. if putin is not in miss tomorrow, presumably a lot of sanctions will be lifted. embargo i would expect to stay in place, both from europe and the united states, if russia continued to occupy crimea. and i think that should be the case with sanctions. they should be clearly tied to policy goals and russian behavior. thisf course, you know, may be a sad note to leave on, president. the sanctions are the impact on putin's behavior, the impact of the sanctions is essentially
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nullified when the president of the united states stands up and dismisses russia's actions. sanctions cannot compensate for such a strong message from the u.s. leader. so those will be the two things i would change. mrs. sultoon: i think we are actually giving uplifting and less than uplifting remarks. going to have to leave it there. our keynote begins with secretary lew and the ambassador if you can thank me in joining them for their thoughts. [applause] mrs. sultoon: if everyone can please stay in their seats, we will do the shuffling up here and hopefully a good state couple for a minute or two. thank you.
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[indiscernible] -- and hopefully stay comfortable for a minute or two. thank you. [indiscernible]
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>> the most depressing thing i read this morning was jack lew's tv because it makes me feel like such a wretched underachiever.
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i worked first with jack lew when he was deputy secretary of state, the first obama term. and then he went on to be white houseector of omb, chief of staff, treasury helpedry, and, you know, save the global economy from meltdown. no. [laughter] daniel: what have we done? but the reason he is an apt person to speak today to sanctions is because of his ofech in march 2016, a kind valedictory speech and a cautionary note about sanctions. the speech, which was absolutely prescient, and i would be proud to say i was co-author of it but i have absolutely nothing to do with the preparation.
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but that was a thoughtful and strategic look at the sanctions when the obama administration had used it far more than in expected to coming into office and during the bush to obama transition. and the panel was discussing some of the risks of sanctions in some detail. years intoeful two the trump administration to have this larger discussion. so it is a pleasure to welcome to the stage a colleague at boss, secretary jack lew. [applause]
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jack: so i was looking at your article. i reread it.. -- and then i read an article you wrote with richard nephew, my former colleague from the state department of columbia. in 2016, you said there are risks. the risks of overuse, and he laid out some of them. and sanctions. but in the article written last year, you said washington is using its economic power in aggressive and unproductive waste, undermining its global position. in 2016, you said there are these 2018, you said we are there , we are in it. how bad, how reversible, what do we do? and there are other things i
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want to raise, but i thought i would start off with the big thing because you wrote it. jack: thank you, dan, for the very generous introduction. i have to say when a group of us tal without a life experience arrived in january 2009, there were career diplomats of which dan was one who gave a crash course to a bunch of overeager students for which all of us have been very grateful ever since. let me go back to the reason why i gave the talk at carnegie at the end of the obama administration. we had a lot of experience with sanctions, probably more than any of us had expected. and i think, not to overstate it, we developed quite a sophisticated approach to sanctions. historically it has been a much more blunter tool
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and a tool we can use and control the spillover of unintended consequences so that you can use it in cases where you might hold back if you did not have that ability to be more finally honed. frankly, i gave the talk because we have learned a lot of lessons the hard way. it seemed like the right thing to do to layout in what i hope was a thoughtful way both what we have learned and concerns we had in terms of how those tools would be used going forward. one of the things that i made clear in that talk and i hope i made clear in the article that richard and i -- we teach together at columbia so we are happy to write together in foreign affairs. one of the things i hope we made clear was that it is critically important that the united states maintain its ability to have sanctions as an effective tool
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and it reserves the ability and right to use that tool unilaterally when it is appropriate. why do i say that? i say that because i can't count the number of times i was in a room where if we did not have sanctions as a meaningful way to respond, the conversation almost immediately would have gone down a path to, do you or do you not use force? the number of circumstances what you need to express your national interest in your view but where force is not the right next step, it is important to have sanctions as an effective tool. what i warned in the carnegie talk was that sanctions are most effective when there is brought in around the world by most of our allies and .olicies to change there is meaningful and lasting relief from the sanctions.
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if you are going to be dammed if you do and dammed if you don't, the country has made its judgment as to what it believes is in its national interest and the ability to get sanctions relief is something that cannot be relied on, sanctions are not an effective way to lever a negotiation. ultimately, it is a negotiation to change government policies that are offensive in another country, a real purpose of sanctions. had in thence we obama administration was in the case of the iran sanctions, we learned through a series of incrementally ratcheted up sanctions that you can keep a very disparate global community together if you listen to what concerns of your allies and even some not so allies when you needed them to be part of the united front.
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did china and india reduce their oil imports as much as other countries? no. but the reduced them significantly, and the combined effects of all the countries in the world working with us was to bring iran to the negotiating table. i do not know that you would have gotten that result if you unilateralyou wil set of sanctions, even the second sanctions that cut off dealings with u.s. financial institutions. ultimately, it was that global pressure and relatively little cheating that make it effective. years, just to carry forward on iran, the story could not be more different today than it was two years ago. just this past weekend, i know you were in munich, dan. you saw it play out on the world stage. we do not have the support of
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our closest allies or really any of our allies on the reinstatement of sanctions on iran. seeing in response to that is a process to look for ways around u.s. sanctions with more creativity and more energy than we have seen before. you ask about what the timing of the impact of it is. i'm not going to sit here and say that i think we are like at the moment where a special purpose vehicle will create the ability to circumvent the united states and therefore relieve the pressure on iran today. what i worry about and what richard and i speculated about in the foreign affairs article is that the plumbing is being built and tested to work around the united states. that over time as those tools are perfected, if the united
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states stays on a path where it is seen as going it alone and doing what it says it wants to do, even without the buy-in of therenations, that able will be increasing alternatives that ship away at the united states. it to af liken process, geological time. if you think about the post world war ii order as something that has got very special power in terms of the u.s.'s place in the world, none of us knows if we did everything right. that goes on for 50 years or 100 years. but let's say it is 50 years. if the policies of the united states have the effect of shortening that by a decade or two decades, that is very meaningful in terms of the u.s.'s role in the world and the arc of history.
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i think the way the u.s. is approaching the use of its unilateral authorities now is causing that process to hasten. i hope that before the changes become so real that they are irreversible, there is a change in how we do our business. but i don't know what the time period is, two years, four years, six years. there is some period of time that the world will wait before it says, we are going to start to develop these things in the most aggressive way. i think what you are seeing, what you saw play out in munich, was a warning shot. well it is certainly true in munich when vice president pence called for the europeans to withdraw from the jcpoa, it fell flat. you can put it more strongly than that. but let me cite a possible
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example, which came up a little bit in that panel discussion today, and that is venezuela sanctions, where the at leastates has acted in the same direction although ahead of the european union and with the support of the oaf. the current administration has does not try itself on its devotion to multilateralism or its solidarity with the european union. yet it acted on behalf of if not the same policy, a consistent transatlantic policy, and with the oas and the sanctions of venezuela, which have not generated any outcry. is this a one off? or could we look at this as an example of the trump administration doing it right? in which case, and i'm trying to construct this. i do not know that it is right,
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but at least to tease out the issue. is the challenge that you have discussed a function of a policy disagreement over iran that we are extrapolating from? or is it broader? because it is the former -- jack: i think the answer is both. i think it is broader. if you look, for example, at the riffs that are now in place and being contemplated together with the withdrawal from the jcpoa, withdrawal from paris, the series of actions taken, there is a pattern here. venezuela is the exception. i actually think venezuela is much more akin to the way that the iran sanctions were put in place than the way the
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withdrawal from the jcpoa was managed. a different process, but it kind of reflects the respect for a need for multilateral brian -- buy-in. the reflects the u.s. working as an being part of a global movement. that is a place of great strength. it also shows the power of in the caseven i if you ask me how integrally connected the u.s. and venezuelan economies are, i would not say they are connected. we barely had relations with them with the exception that citgo is there. forthe money that is paid oil to be purchased in the united states is hard currency. famous forf the venezuelan oil is forgiveness of debt and other things that are not hard currency. even though we have relative to our relationship with other countries small contact with venezuela, there is enormous
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power in the u.s. economic relationship. venezuela, represents more of the way things ought to be done than the other things we are talking about. i'm not sure i can come up with another example in the last couple of years. daniel: let me try at least a partial example. dprk sanctions. last six months or so of the obama administration, when i was in the sanctions job, we were starting to turn. jack: yes. daniel: toward something the trump administration implement it as maximum pressure. probablythis will irritate people on both sides, a lot of the specific sanctions the trump administration put in place and executed skillfully were ideas --
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jack: that we cued up. daniel: hard to deny it, but there it is. this is a case of the trump administration again acting according to a clear policy, which had general almost universal buy-in in terms of its objectives and in working with our allies and put significant pressure on china to do more. and it was reasonably successful. then there is the question of singapore and the statement. jack: right. i will acknowledge your point that the dprk is a mixed case. it is important to remember that we went to the security council in december of 2016. the securityaired
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council, the only time a finance minister has ever chaired a security council meeting, where we got international law in to ratchet up -- buy-in to ratchet up sanctions because the missile program was accelerating. and candidly, it had gained speed faster than had been expected. back,i was going to look knowing what we knew in the last quarter of 2016, if we had known it a year before, you would have seen more action in the obama administration, which is why all those actions were cued up. and i also agree with you that the tougher stance on china had an effect of bringing china more forward than it probably would have otherwise been. i think thetime, extreme rhetoric that was used
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to frame the issue combined with the grandiose embrace of a dictator in north korea sends a very jarring message about what the real consistency of the united states is. i think the imposition of tariffs on china that has been -- i had manyve encounters where i complained about many of the policy issues that the current administration is challenging china on. but i do not think that going to a trade war is the way to resolve those differences. you asked about the interaction of china's pressure on the dprk and the u.s. engaging in a trade war. i do not know if that is totally thought through. i do not know that -- well, i do know the principal economic pressure point on north korea is china. and balancing how you engage
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china to maintain china's cooperation is something that requires diplomacy, not just rhetoric and not just unilateral actions like the imposition of tariffs. i think it is unfinished story. obviously, there is another round of meetings coming up, both on trade and on dprk. resolution there is dprk that is stable, but i'm not optimistic it will meet the standards we set for the jcpoa. this administration has defined the jcpoa as being, if i get the works correctly, the worse the lever. of northhe odds korea putting its nuclear program completely on hold is a long shot. i hope it happens rid the world
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will be a safer place if that happens. but i worry about the impact on our alliances in asia if there are material reductions in our ability to offer security assurances to japan and the republic of korea. so i think the end of the dprk engagement is far from known. pointwill concede your that it was a case of continuing to work in an area where there was broad international consensus. it was possible to bring more pressure there. whether that will have the effect of reversing north korea's policy remains to be seen. generalize, i think what i hear you saying is the use of the sanctions tool in north korea -- against north
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korea, was done with relative skill. but a policy context that was internally inconsistent.jack : right. unilateralism and sanctions is connected to unilateralism and other areas. you have to look at them kind of together because the role of the united states in the world does not get separated out into the united states as the author of sanctions, the united states as a trading partner, the united oftes as the leader democracy. it is kind of the whole package. the sanctions tool in north korea, if anything, i have been circumspect and set it just a few moments ago. if we had known in 2015 what we would2016, we probably
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have been even quicker to use more pressure area putting it into the context of the other 2015, weing on, in were still giving china in the hold, keeping the pressure on iran to get the iran deal. we were keeping pressure on china to stay engaged on tariffs to try to deal with climate change and diplomacy and international economic policy. you are always making trade-offs about where you put the maximum pressure. when the intelligence suggested dprk, itore time on did not become unimportant. but it did not become the dominant concern. as you know, by the last quarter of 2016, that was shifting. it was shifting because the clarity of the picture was changing. in imposing more
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sanctions on the dprk in 2017, it did put pressure on the regime. i'm not sure how to separate that from the other elements. daniel: there is one sanctions regime that the trump administration has put into effect that is counterintuitive. it's global magnitsky. human rights and anticorruption sanctions regime. a tool that was debated, congressionally driven, debated during the obama administration. the trump administration has embraces it. they are not things i think of automatically linked together, but there it is. administration has it to go after some pretty awful characters, including some people we were looking at i
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heart in the obama and ministration. bad actors in africa with blood on their hands. not good people. the do you make of both irony of the trump administration embracing a human rights sanctions tool, and what do you think of the implementations so far? all sanctions tools can be used badly or misused. jack: i have to contest in my private life, i have not inlowed all of the instances which the global magnitsky has been used. important that it is for sanctions to be a tool that when there are appropriate times that protest
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human right violations. is howdon't know effective they are, whether it is people that come to the united states, that do business with the united states, or how symbolic they are. unfortunately, with many instances of using sanctions when they are human rights violations, it is up being more an expression of policy views and something that can effectively change behavior. i have not studied the series of actions. i found when we debated human rights as grounds for sanctions, i always asked, is this going to be something that is going to change behavior? or is this going to be something stake in theind of ground of what we think is right or wrong? i was always careful about using sanctions for symbolic purposes because they are so important
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when you can have real effect that i was worried over time it would dilute the power of sanctions if they were used kind of too widely. that is not commenting on any of the specifics. i just have not studied them. daniel: fair enough. we spent a lot of time on the russia sanctions. jack: sure did. theel: and tried to balance imperative of responding effectively to russia's aggression without doing so in a way that blueback and damaged us and our allies. we have seen the trump administration try to find that circumstances where the president's old policy
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is far from clear, and the administration's policy is therefore inconsistent. two questions. do you think we got it right in retrospect? should we have been tougher? or did we hammer it about right? more importantly, where should we go now? because i'm thinking about russian behavior. if i was still in government trying to design a sanctions program for russia, one of the problems i would have is trying to separate the different strands of russian that behavior. russian aggression against ukraine. killing people in the u.k. using nerve gas. interfering in our elections. those are all separate activities. jack: many streams. daniel: right. what advice would you give? jack: i think you have to go back to the point in time we
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violationen russia's of ukraine's sovereignty became the reason for our sanctions program. we obviously had a very strong view that protecting sovereignty in europe was a very significant u.s. national interest. thaturopean allies share sentiment on a geopolitical level, but they faced a very difficult recovery from the great recession. and they were very worried about taking steps that were going to cause the recession in europe. we were not so anxious to cause a recession in europe either. we had just come out of a recession ourselves. in 2012, 2013, one of the only thing that may have tipped the u.s. into a double-dip recession would have been a recession in europe. so it was a moment in time when being thoughtful about how you
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put pressure on russia was at a premium. matter, iactical don't believe a sanctions regime could have been effective without european buy-n. we did not have enough contact with russia to do it unilaterally and create the amount of pressure that would potentially change russia's behavior. i actually think it was quite an had alishment that we series of increasingly tough movement as russia's into ukraine advanced, as their refusal to withdraw became clear, and it started with designating a bank that was the favorite bank of putin's cronies, bank russia. it moved onto the areas of global finance and trade, where russia most needed access to
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international financial markets and energy technology. and i think it is an important element of sanctions policy to show a willingness and ability to keep ratcheting up the pressure, because what you are trying to do is get them to change the policy without having the spillover effects be worse than you can bear. now, was it successful? this was all before the election importantce, so it is not to mingle them. i would argue they were successful at it is hard to separate it from the impact of the declining global energy prices, which have a question blow on russia's economy at the same time. the minsk record may not have happened without the sanctions. we don't know the end of the
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sanctions of where the minsk accords and that -- end up. there still may be a possibility of a geopolitical resolution. it certainly stopped the advanced and the continued ratcheting up of the violation. was it a complete success? no. to thepare iran coming table to put its nuclear program ice, that is an easier place to say sanctions did what sanctions were supposed to do. i think it would be easy to dismiss the russia sanctions as ineffective because the whole world didn't change because the levelion did not reach a of -- it did not worsen. it in some ways got better. and i think this administration's engagement with russia is very hard to separate the broader issues regarding russia from the sanctions issues
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. they meet at so many points, in terms of questions being asked and answers that are still not easy to have confidence about. i think it was notable that congress passed a law taking away presidential discretion in terms of how to implement and withdraw from russia sanctions because there was a distrust of the administration and its willingness, ability to do so in an appropriate way. historically, a big advocate of executive discretion in these areas because putting the tools in place, taking them out is very difficult. and you have to defend things with a lot of criticism. if you believe that putting sanctions in place only makes sense when there is resolution you remove them, you want to give a president the ability to
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turn it on and off based on the evolving negotiation and resolution. when congress does not trust the president, it takes away authority. and i think we saw some of that in the russia sanctions. -- this getshe beyond russia, but it is related. the perception that sanctions are being implemented in a quasijudicial manner. i always thought it was a manner of real strength for the united states when opec brought an action, it was rocksolid. it could take it to court and you could defend it, and there was not a sense that there were political decisions being made on whether or not action actiond -- an violated a sanctions law. i think when you mixed up sanctions efforts and policy or
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political decisions, it tends to undermine the efficacy of the sanctions themselves. so for example, suggesting that if i get what i want in a trade agreement, a sanction can be dialed down. that is not a good use of the sanctions tool, in my view. even if the trade objective is a worthy one. daniel: i agree with that. and as someone who never worked in treasury ever, i have to say that my ability as the negotiator on sanctions to count ac do not have to worry that they would get it wrong, to be able to trust their analysis was an asset i cannot speak too highly of. to be able to actually count on the implementers to get it right
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every time. jack: to be clear, i have no reason to believe ofac as an organization is operating differently now than it did then, but it does not have the top cover of the most senior officials buying into that approach. daniel: from what i have seen, their professionalism remains completely intact, and their skill remains intact. overworked. jack: that was always the case. daniel: some very good deals. it is worth investing in. i say this. i never worked there. but i also think you have made a point that i want to underscore. sanctions work if they are embedded in a strategy which makes sense and is consistently followed. to theown answer question, happy sanctions worked, have the ukraine related
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sanctions worked? well, if you are putin, why do a deal based on minsk, which forces in out of the -- and restores them to ukraine what he thinks he may get it all by out waiting us? that is not because tensions were ineffective. daniel: exactly. jack: he's making a geopolitical ventilation that he has more leverage on a policy. daniel: exactly. these sanctions are weak and if they are embedded in a policy which is inconsistently followed. jack: right. daniel: if you are putin and you listen to the administration and it is inconsistent with the president, the head of the administration, what does that do to the power of the message which sanctions are backing up? that is my words, but that has
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been of concern to me. experts,n audience of people that have studied sanctions for a long time, and i wanted to open it up to questions. please identify yourself. barbara. barbara: thanks. i direct the iran initiative here.pleasure to see you . has withdrawn from the jcpoa and violated the understanding that was reached, what in your mind will it take to bring iran back into new negotiations where we have to put more on the table, and why should they have any say that the next u.s. administration would uphold any agreement when the current one didn't? jack: it is interesting to at least to date i have not seen anything in any public reports that suggest that iran has actually reversed its side of
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the jcpoa. i see no evidence of a reinstitution of the nuclear program. one has to wonder whether that is because there is some hope that with the rest of the countries there were parties of the jcpoa sticking to it that there will be a return on some part of the united states. i think i would be more comfortable thinking that iran's nuclear program was not coming back because we were continuing to do the monitoring and we were continuing to have the ability to know in real time what was going on all the benefits we got from the jcpo. but i think it is interesting that for all of the tension in doesh over jcpoa, there seem to be some at least hope
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that there might be some rethinking going forward. look. i have never said the jcpoa reflected a clean bill of health for iran.iran does a lot of very bad things , and we never withdrew the sanctions that were in place for terrorism. we never withdrew the sanctions in place for regional destabilization. we never withdrew the sanctions that were in place for human rights violations. i cannot tell you how many times they complained either to john kerry or me that they were not getting the benefit of the bargain because they were not being welcomed into the global economy as they expected. we set, when you clean up the rest of your problems, maybe you will have a right to expect to be at that level, but we never said the jcpoa was a clean bill of health. to live byermined the letter of the law in the jcpoa and make sure iran got the benefit of that bargain because if not, how do you get sanctions to work and get a government to
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change its policy? this was a very important set of concessions.on the other hand , it was never the case that we thought that eliminated all the other concerns. i don't know what it takes to get iran back to the table on these other issues. i certainly don't think the higher level of tension between the united states and iran today makes it more likely that that is going to happen. i'm not saying we were on the doorstep of iran cleaning up its other problems. but i would say it is probably farther away, not closer, today. for the secretary? >> thanks, dan, and thanks to you both for an excellent presentation. daniel: identify yourself. >> i'm sorry. eric hirschhorn, former
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secretary of commerce, and i worked with both of you in the obama administratio and proud to have done it. i think, jack, your underselling the success of the russia sanctions. dan, you are quite a student of russia and eastern europe, whether you comment on the idea that putin has not gone anywhere else significant. syria had been messing around to begin with but he stayed out of the baltics and not making much visible trouble there either. daniel: i think it is a fair point. thatnk that the reality is there was a price to be paid when you crossed the line and made a note of that. i was trying to address the kind of confines of the ukraine issue. of frankly, i'm very proud the quality of the sanctions that we put in place. they put maximum pressure on
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russia with minimal harm to our allies, and that was not an easy thing to do. we have to figure out the wiring of the global financial system in ways we never had to before in order to achieve that outcome. what i can do is sit here and claim it cleaned up ukraine. that would be an overstatement. and i think if you compare it to iran, iran is a much easier case to say cause-and-effect, sanctions, negotiations. i do think there were lasting benefits to the sanctions program. and i agree with dan, that if there had been clarity of u.s. positions, might have been even more so. the fact there is so much of a change in u.s. posture towards russia and different positions depending on who in the u.s. government you seek guidance terrain that
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creates opportunities for bad actors. well, isure that -- will leave it at that. daniel: yes, ma'am? >> thank you very much. paula stern. questionsking this going back into history as you can so well with regard to congressional assertiveness vis-a-vis economic sanctions. first, i want to make a point that we are talking rather narrowly today about ofac for the most part and some other aspects, but we did not talk about the export controls, the commerce department. jack: very implicitly was referring to -- paula: they are very hard-working as well.
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menu of wayswhole in which we can use u.s. economic sanctions. we meeting the u.s. , administration, and congress. having written a book on congressional assertiveness brought about the jackson amendment back in the 1970's, i'm wondering if you think that we can imagine an effective congressional assertiveness in the near future vis-a-vis the shaping of economic sanctions given the differences of views that are being articulated about president trump's positions on or on other iran countries that have been targeted by the u.s.
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jack: i think if you look back over where congressional assertiveness and sanctions have been most effective, the two examples you come to our jackson-vanik and south africa sanctions to end apartheid. both were very targeted. both were aimed at a very specific purpose and had a great deal of affect. how it covers that on a broad basis to review good to the inherent difference between a legislative policy and executive branch that has implementation authority. one of the things i said a carnegie was in order for sanctions to really work, it has to be in deep, deep capability to enforce the sanctions. that is not something you can do as a matter of legislative policy easily.
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there are investigations that are more akin to the justice nepartment tha congress. i think if one were to rely on sanctions onesign a micro basis, it is hard to see how that would end up in the long run being as effective as having well-designed authorities. the flip side of that is it executives are not interested with the authority, congress tends to pull back. i think we are now in a place where russia you have seen that a little bit and i do not know what the future will bring. the point i was implicitly making just because you make a good point it is not all ofac and treasury.
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paula: the justice department now and china. findinge linkage of a that was based on violation of clear rules to an outcome and create negotiations confuse the issue. they confuse the issue in a way. the prosecutorial discretion exists in law. it exists in sanctions. you can choose not to impose a sanction.but if you choose to impose a sanction and then withdraw it because of the benefit you get in some other areas, that ultimately weakens the efficacy of the sanctions tool. paula: that's true. thank you. >> with the voice of america. secretary lew, you mentioned the question is
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, what should be the standards for north korea or the u.s. government to start considering easing sanctions on the country if we consider sanctions as a tool of diplomacy? and also, south korean government contends that south and north korea are in a special relationship and should be given special consideration, and even government currently wants to .ove ahead so should the u.s. government give sanctions exemptions to inter-korean projects? thank you. jack: i think that iran and the dprk are in different places on the nuclear programs. it is difficult to say it should be exactly the same solution. ideally, the outcome would have been the same, that you could say the country that was the target of the sanctions would not have and would not be able to have nuclear weapons. that may be too late in north korea if they already have nuclear weapons.
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will they go back and remove the capacity that they have? i think the u.s. should try to get as close to that as humanly possible and should want the kind of assurances that existed see all that he would of the things that go into building a nuclear weapon and see if there is a violation and the sanctions will spring back into place if there was a violation. i actually think on the nuclear side, jcpoa was as close to rocksolid as an agreement can be. i think the fact that the administration has been so -- theive of jcpoa burden will be on them to explain why any agreement that leaves north korea with nuclear weapons is an acceptable outcome. and if the price of that agreement is to withdraw u.s. fromity guarantees
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historic close allies, that is something that ought to raise some serious concern. so i think they are very different situations. it is hard to imagine an outcome in the case of north korea that leaves me as confident as i was about the 15n agreement that 5, 10, years later he would be able to say that iran has no nuclear weapons. if i was going to set that bar for the administration, i might be setting it in an impossible place. me, that suggests the criticism of the jcpoa was unfounded. but also, their expectation setting for north korea is too low. it was a very early embrace of a very bad leader. and so far, he has gotten the benefit of the engagement.
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he has gotten recognition that no other american president was willing to give. he is being treated as if he entered the world of nations as an equal. and so far, he has not changed any of his bad behavior. iran did not get any of that. i think there is a kind of double standard on this. i hope it is successful. believe me. the world would be a better place if north korea did not have nuclear weapons. i think the question of deferments to the republic of korea, obviously, we it when theo close nuclear program was ramping up. very important to be careful about relieving the pressure on north korea until there are demonstrable results that will lead to a better
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outcome than we've got right now. so far, i don't see that. daniel: we have time for two quick or one longer question and answer. yes, ma'am. lew.ank you, secretary i'm with china's media. wonderingned -- i'm about huawei. what do you think are the possible scenarios regarding huawei given the context of current u.s.-china trade negotiations? thank you. jack: i'm not familiar enough with where the legal proceedings where they came from. it seemed on to me that it came that there was an
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action that led to extradition requests and what it did. i think there are serious questions about the behavior. there are serious questions about what the right legal outcome is. is thethink is very odd suggestion that if trade talks go ok, maybe it is not the extradition thing can be worked out. there ought to be a legal proceeding that stands on its own in arbitrating negotiations that's than on their own, and the two should not be confused. one comment about the .cpoa in my in my experience, the jcpoa was like arms control with the
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soviet union. it did not and was not intended to make the soviet union a nice place. it was intended to shift the competition away from the area most dangerous to the united of less danger to us and greater advantage as it turns out. arms control was regarded by the -- itright as so would put us to sleep in the face of danger. it turned out to our advantage. the whole structure of the jcpoa, and i was not doing iran policy, i was not directly involved, but the whole logic of nice, not to make iran but to get rid of or at least
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manage a terrible problem and problems,iran's other which is actually not a hard problem to figure it out. you said as much, by the comparison with the cold war, which i recall ended rather well at ended after reagan discovered the use of arms control combined with an overall soviet strategy which makes sense. so that is just a digression. jack: look. i think if one is troubled by iran's power and role in the world today, it does not get better if iran were to have a nuclear only gets worse . daniel: right. jack: which is another way of restating what you said about the cold war. daniel: exactly. ok. one. yes, sir. all, we are really grateful to our western partners forto the u.s. and eu
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strong sanctions policy against russia in response of aggression against ukraine. but at the same time, right now, five years after the first sanctions against russia for this aggression, unfortunately, in terms of changing the russia is still occupying crimea, russian forces are still in an area. maybe it is time to make sanctions more painful for the kremlin and for putin. where could it be done? toht now they are creating undermine ukraine and europe. maybe it is fine to think about more painful sanctions against russian energy export pipelines.
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thank you. i obviously took a measured approach in terms of describing the success of the sanctions because i don't disagree. russia is still occupying crimea . if we were going to declare that the sanctions had worked heavily would say they with changed -- change their policy and withdrew. they -- they did not move into other countries. things withroze minsk in the background as a framework. i think the idea of keeping pressure on russia is something i'm sympathetic to. it makes sense to keep pressure. i don't know what the right tools are. i am not doing this day today.
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the challenge of keeping unity in europe has not gone away. something that was essential. the supply of natural gas in europe from a russia is a weakness that we could export more to possibly dilute that alliance. i think we are doing more of that. top ofomething off the my head i cannot tell you whether that would be the tool that would be the appropriate one. i don't disagree with the basic notion. the united states should be keeping on russia as russia is continuing to violate the sovereignty of ukraine. thes a footnote to that, menu of aeschylus or a options escalatorys torry --
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options is still available and some of those elements are included in the most recent legislation. you can read about it. we have it out there. shameless plug. is interesting is that those options still exist. i would rather not have the legislation. i am an executive branch person. i think there are downsides of having sanctions in legislation especially detail sanctions legislation. that, the administration has to have credibility. and we did. they russia sanction legislation during the obama administration was not all that strong. congress had more faith in the executive than it does now. fair question. i am told we are running actually over.
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i suspect we could have gone on and it would have been my pleasure to do so. i just want to thank you for both here and especially your service, what you achieved and that perspective now is of critical importance i think even as you say in your private life. thank you very much and thank you all for coming. [applause] >> thank you.
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>> in december president trump requested the pentagon come up with plans for a u.s. military withdrawal from afghanistan. in just a few minutes on c-span will take you live to the center for the national interest for a discussion about those plans. that is at 12:15 p.m. eastern time. >> this week at 8:00 eastern on c-span we will look at the political careers of the four congressional leaders. the c-span from archives and analysis by
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congressional reporters. tonight it is speaker nancy pelosi. on wednesday we will look at house minority leader kevin mccarthy's congressional career. up with ay we wrap look at senate minority leader charles schumer. watch this week beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> mrs. daryl kimball of the arms control association. he serves as the executive director. what is the most important thing for the united states to consider in this upcoming summit with north korea? mr. kimball: the window for the diplomatic breakthrough is not going to last forever. this is the second summit at state -- head of state level. there has been an easing of tensions since the 2018 singapore summit but there has not been progress on the plan for denuclearization and for easing tensions and move towards a pie


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