Biden’s administration imposed visa restrictions on 76 Saudi individuals, according to the administration, who were involved in threatening dissidents abroad, but the crown prince was not on the list.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended bin Salman’s omission on Sunday, saying there were “more effective ways to prevent it from happening again”, while also leaving “space to work with the Saudis” in areas where there is mutual agreement and a US national interest. Psaki said Biden was clear that he was going to “recalibrate” relations between the US and Saudi Arabia, among other things by ending support for the Saudi war in Yemen.
That’s all fair enough. But Psaki has also made another allegation – an allegation that Biden’s decision to avoid direct sanctions against bin Salman follows a precedent set by previous presidents.
“Historically, and even in recent history, Democratic and Republican governments, no sanctions have been imposed on the leaders of foreign governments where we have diplomatic relations – and even where we do not have diplomatic relations,” Psaki said.
Facts first: It is not true that even in the recent past ‘no sanctions have been imposed’ against the leaders of foreign governments. In fact, all three of Biden’s predecessors who held office in the 21st century imposed direct sanctions on foreign leaders. Psaki made a narrower and more accurate statement on Monday, saying the US “typically” did not impose direct sanctions on leaders of countries with which it has diplomatic relations.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer, a non-resident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who studied sanctions, said Psaki’s allegation on Sunday was ‘too broad’ given the list of leaders against whom the US has imposed direct sanctions. . He added: “What Psaki meant was that the US seldom or never sanctioned the leaders of countries as important American allies, nor the leaders of nuclear opponents.
The list of leaders against the US has been directly sanctioned:
- Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, approved by President Donald Trump;
- North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and then-Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, approved by President Barack Obama;
- Myanmar’s then-leader Than Shwe, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who were approved by President George W. Bush.
There is complexity about who qualifies as a leader of a foreign government. Iran’s official head of government is the president, but the ultimate authority is, as the title suggests, the supreme leader. Saudi Arabia is still officially ruled by King Salman, but the crown prince, his son, is the de facto ruler.
Regardless, Psaki’s claim went too far. Michael Beck, a sanctions expert from TradeSecure, LLC, said that if you consider the list of sanctioned leaders, ‘it’s a bit exaggerated to indicate that the United States will not or will not sanction leaders of foreign governments. not.’
The details of the sanctions against these leaders differed. These included travel restrictions, asset freezes and bans on Americans who had financial transactions with them.
A narrower claim on Monday
Psaki narrowed the claim at her daily personal information session in the White House. She said this time: “Historically, the United States, through Democratic and Republican presidents, has usually not approved government leaders from countries where we have diplomatic relations.”
The ‘not typical’ and the ‘countries where we have diplomatic relations’ make Psaki’s claim more accurate on Monday than the assertion she made on CNN on Sunday. (Psaki did not respond to a request for comment on her Sunday claim.)
The US has had different levels of diplomatic relations with the countries whose leaders have approved them under Trump, Obama and Bush.
The US has not had formal diplomatic relations with Iran or North Korea. It announced that its embassy in Libya had been suspended when the sanctions were announced in 2011.
The US did have diplomatic relations with Zimbabwe at the time of the sanctions in 2003. The US had partial diplomatic relations with Myanmar in 2007, when it was represented by a charge rather than an ambassador.
With Venezuela, Belarus and Syria, the US had diplomatic relations during the sanctions, but relations broke down over the next two years, with diplomats suspended or withdrawn.
A complex topic
There are, of course, foreign leaders who have not directly endorsed the US, even though they accuse them of serious misconduct. The US, for example, has imposed numerous sanctions on Russian individuals and entities close to President Vladimir Putin, but has not explicitly targeted Putin himself.
Michael Kimmage, a professor at the Catholic University of the United States who is an expert on US-Russia relations, noted that ‘the question there is of an overarching way in which Putin’s finances intersect. with the state enterprise and the happiness of his friends’ direct sanction against Putin “does not give simple answers.” Hufbauer said that in cases such as the severe US sanctions against the Uganda of the late Idi Amin or the Cuba of the late Fidel Castro, trying to separate sanctions against the country of sanctions against the leader would create a ‘distinction without a difference’ .
George Lopez, a professor at Notre Dame University who previously sat on an expert panel of the United Nations for monitoring and implementing sanctions against North Korea, interpreted Psaki’s statement more broadly than Hufbauer and Beck did. has.
Lopez said the United States’ use was “general” to “sanction all the people directly under the leader,” rather than to sanction the leader directly. Traditionally, he said, the American attitude was that “you do not make politics personal at that level.”
Given this general American approach, Lopez argued that Psaki’s Sunday claim was “accurate enough,” even though there were exceptions to the rule. Due to the exception that was there, we do not agree with respect, although it is good that Psaki became more precise the next day.
