Trump wields sanctions hammer; experts wonder to what end

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Trump wields sanctions hammer; experts wonder to what end

2019-08-18 20:31 Last Updated At：20:40

Call it the diplomacy of coercion.

The Trump administration is aggressively pursuing economic sanctions as a primary foreign policy tool to an extent unseen in decades, or perhaps ever. Many are questioning the results even as officials insist the penalties are achieving their aims.

Since taking office in January 2017, President Donald Trump has used an array of new and existing sanctions against Iran, North Korea and others. His Treasury Department, which oversees economic sanctions, has targeted thousands of entities with asset freezes and business bans. The State Department has been similarly enthusiastic about imposing its own penalties: travel bans on foreign government officials and others for human rights abuses and corruption in countries from the Americas to the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

At the same time, the administration is trying to reduce greatly the amount of U.S. foreign assistance, notably cutting money to Latin America and the Palestinians. The White House budget office is making plans to return billions of dollars in congressionally approved but unspent dollars to the Treasury. A similar effort was rejected by Congress last year.

The combination of more sticks and fewer carrots has created a disconnection between leveraging the might of America's economic power and effectively projecting it, according to experts who fear the administration is relying too much on coercion at the expense of cooperation.

It also has caused significant tensions with American allies, especially in Europe, where experts say a kind of sanctions fatigue may be setting in. The decision this past week by the British territory of Gibraltar to release, over U.S. objections, an Iranian oil tanker that it seized for sanctions violations could be a case in point.

It's rare for a week to go by without the administration announcing new sanctions.

On Thursday, the administration said it would rescind the visas of any crew aboard the Iranian tanker in Gibraltar. On Wednesday, Sudan's former intelligence chief received a travel ban. Last week, the entire Venezuelan government was hit. More than 2,600 people, companies, ships and planes have been targeted so far since Trump took office.

"The daily pace is intense," the treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, said recently.

She and proponents of the administration's foreign policy say sanctions are working and have denied Iran and its proxies hundreds of millions, if not billions, in dollars in revenue used for destabilizing activity in the Middle East and beyond. And, they note, the U.S. approach does not involve the vastly more expensive option of military action.

"Overuse of economic warfare is certainly a better alternative to the overuse of military warfare," said Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has advocated for even broader sanctions.

Mandelker, whose office is in charge of economic sanctions, says sanctions alone "rarely, if ever, comprise the entire solution to a national security threat or human rights or corruption crisis." They must, she said in a speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, be accompanied by other action to push U.S. national interests.

Experts say the administration has not shown great vision in adopting strategies that do not rely on sanctions or separating punitive foreign policy decisions from purely trade issues, such as the spat with the Chinese over tariffs. While Trump has been reluctant to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 presidential election, his administration has not relented on sanctions for Moscow's actions in Ukraine and human rights issues.

"President Trump has completely conflated economic sanctions and commercial policy," said Gary Haufbauer, a senior fellow with the Peterson Institute for International Economics who was a senior treasury official during the Carter administration. He said that while that approach might work with countries such as Mexico and Guatemala over immigration, trade measures and sanctions against China and Russia do not.

"I don't see that the U.S. is having any positive effect on Chinese behavior, or for that matter, Russia," Haufbauer said. He said this was a "pivot point" in world economic relations, with the U.S. losing its leadership role and opening up the possibility for another nation to pick up the mantle. Asian countries, he said, are deferring to China's perspective on the U.S., and American alliances with European nations are being weakened by Trump's reliance on sanctions.

"The U.S., through its trade policy, has managed to isolate itself," he said.

Although many administrations have relied on sanctions, Trump has used them with zeal at a cost to the U.S., said Liz Rosenberg, the director of the Energy, Economics and Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. She was a senior adviser to one of Mandelker's predecessors at Treasury during the Obama administration.

Where the U.S. once coordinated with Europeans on issues such as counterterrorism and nuclear nonproliferation, Trump's sanctions are often one-sided and do not prioritize partnerships, Rosenberg said.

"This is a brand new reality that has never been seen in modern times," she said. "There are those in Europe who feel not just harmed by the United States, but also targeted by the United States."

The result is that many countries are less eager, or in fact wary, of signing up for American initiatives, particularly when they see the U.S. retreating in areas such as foreign aid. The administration is expected to present a plan soon to cut as much as $4 billion in economic and development aid, drawing wide bipartisan rebukes from Capitol Hill. A similar effort was turned aside in 2018, but there are fears it may to come to pass this year.

"Once again, the Trump administration is hell bent on slashing programs that lift millions out of poverty, turn the tide against deadly diseases, strengthen our economy, and make America safer," said Tom Hart, the North America executive director for The ONE Campaign, which supports development assistance. "Not only does this undermine U.S. leadership around the world, it subverts Congress' power of the purse."

Associated Press writer Kali Robinson contributed to this report.

Venice tests a 5-euro entry fee for day-trippers as the Italian city grapples with overtourism

2024-04-26 00:14 Last Updated At：00:20

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launched a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro ($5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Visitors arriving at Venice's main train station were greeted with large signs listing the 29 dates through July of the plan's test phase that also designated separate entrances for tourists, and residents, students and workers.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism, insisting that only a resurgence in the population will restore balance to a city where narrow alleyways and water buses are often clogged with tourists.

Hundreds of Venetians protested against the program, marching festively though the city's main bus terminal behind banners reading “No to Tickets, Yes to Services and Housing.” Protesters scuffled briefly with police with riot gear who blocked them from entering the city, before changing course and entering over another bridge escorted by plainclothes police officers. The demonstration wrapped up peacefully in a piazza.

Tourists arriving at the main station encountered almost as many journalists as stewards on hand to politely guide anyone unaware of the new requirements through the process of downloading the QR code to pay the fee.

Arianna Cecilia, a tourist from Rome visiting Venice for the first time, said she thought it was “strange” to have to pay to enter a city in her native country, and be funneled through separate entrance ways for tourists. She and her boyfriend were staying in nearby Treviso, and so downloaded the QR code as required. But she was still caught off-guard while soaking in her first view ever of Venice's canals by the sight of the entrance signs and her boyfriend telling her to get out the ticket.

On the other side of the entrance ways, workers in yellow vests carried out random checks at the train station. Transgressors face fines of 50 to 300 euros ($53 to $320), but officials said “common sense” was being applied for the launch.

The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free and unchecked.

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of overtourism, and officials hope that the pilot project can help provide more exact figures to better manage the phenomenon.

The city can track the number of hotel visitors, which last year numbered 4.6 million and is down 16% from pre-pandemic highs. But the number of day visitors, which make up the majority of the crowds in Venice, could only be estimated until recently.

A Smart Control Room set up during the pandemic has been tracking arrivals from cellphone data, roughly confirming pre-pandemic estimates of 25 million to 30 million arrivals a year, said Michele Zuin, the city’s top economic official. That includes both day-trippers and overnight guests.

But Zuin said the data is incomplete.

“It’s clear we will get more reliable data from the contribution” being paid by day-trippers, he said.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. On peak days, local police set up one-way traffic for pedestrians to keep the crowds moving.

Residents opposing the day-tripper tax insist that the solution to Venice's woes are to boost the resident population and the services they need, limiting short-term rentals to make available more housing and attract families back from the mainland.

Last year, Venice passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park. You don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared the launch day, coinciding with an Italian holiday, a success, registering 15,700 paying visitors, 50% more than anticipated.

More than 97,000 others had downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. Hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, provided a QR code for visitors to attest to their stay, which includes a hotel tax — accounting for 40,000 of those.

Venturini, the tourist official, said that interest in Venice’s pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities, and municipalities abroad such as Barcelona, Spain, and Amsterdam.

But Marina Rodino, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, doesn't see the fee as the cure-all. Neighboring apartments in her residential building near the famed Rialto Bridge once inhabited by families are now short-term apartment rentals.

The corner butcher shop closed. Yet she noted that the new entrance fee requirement will still allow young people to flood the city in the evening for the traditional aperitivo, which can grow rowdy.

She was passing out mock European Union passports for “Venice, Open City,” underlining the irony of the new system, and challenging its legal standing with citations from the Italian Constitution guaranteeing its citizens the right to “move or reside freely in any part of the national territory."

“This is not a natural oasis. This is not a museum. It is not Pompeii. It is a city, where we need to fight so the houses are inhabited by families, and stores reopen. That is what would counter this wild tourism,’’ Rodino said.