When Sanctions Replace Strategy in U.S. Africa Policy

WEBVTT
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Unfiltered, unapologetic, and insightful, this is the Africa program.
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Join me, November Pezo Dizolele, founder and managing director of Dizolele Advisory for fresh perspectives and voices from across the continent and beyond.
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Hello listeners and welcome to the Africa program.
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I wanted to update you on an important uh subject.
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We recorded this episode on February 18, 2026, and it said that Rwanda had not been sanctioned by the United States.
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However, on March 2nd, 2026, the United States Department of Treasury sanctioned the entire Rwanda Defense Force, including four of its most senior commanders.
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This does not change the substance of our conversation, but it's nevertheless an important development worth mentioning.
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Please enjoy the conversation.
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Sanctions, sanctions have become a part and parcel of foreign affairs.
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You see the crisis, you wait long enough, there will be somebody talking about sanctions.
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This can come from governments themselves, it can come from civil society, it comes from academics, writers.
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But who will this power of sanction?
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Is it just any country?
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It appears that for the most part, it's uh the regime, the sanction regime is really driven by Western countries primarily, and people in the global south, quote unquote, believe that uh sometimes this doesn't serve the purpose.
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In the end, who gets punished?
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So these are the discussions that we like to have today to look at how this affects not just African countries.
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Of course, I believe Africa is uh is very much front and center in everything global these days, but how those who sanction the others uh do it, particularly within the context of Africa, where the crossroads of conflict uh and uh crisis is still there.
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And I'm talking about war necessarily, I'm talking about finance, I'm talking about conflict minerals as they call them, or just critical minerals, or gold and other minerals, diamond.
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We remember that the Kimberley process that become a pretty famous and kind of the gold standards uh of uh of what you do in the case of minerals, particularly.
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Um we try to replicate that in places like the DRC with uh other minerals there, but does it work?
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Is really the question.
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Today I'm joined by a friend and colleague, Brad Brooks Rubin, who is a partner at Arkturos, a boutique law firm where he advises private sector and civil society clients on sanction compliance and other regulatory issues, including business and human rights.
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Brad is also a senior non-resident associate at uh the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
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Brad, prior to joining Arcturos, worked as a senior advisor in the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the US Department of State, where he was responsible for sanctions policy coordination related to sub-Saharan Africa, Burma, the West Bank, and natural resources.
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Brad, hello and welcome to the Africa program.
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Nvemba, it's such a great uh honor to be here.
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Thank you so much for asking me, and it's uh it's great to be in conversation with you.
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We are delighted that you've joined us today.
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You are one of the uh foremost experts in this subject.
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Can you walk us through this entire this entire sanctions regime?
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How did it come about?
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I was talking about the global south, where this is seen as the West wielding undue power on other people around the world.
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Uh I'm always leery of calling myself an expert, but uh but here I am.
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Uh I I mean look, sanctions, I mean it's a long story, right?
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Sanctions go back, you can read things that say millennia, centuries.
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Um you know, modern sanctions, you know, in the in the post for for decades during the after the the um development of the UN were really country-based embargoes, right?
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We think about the the um embargoes on what was then Rhodesia um before Zimbabwe's independence and uh South Africa.
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Um out of the wake of the criticism of the embargo on Iraq during the first Gulf War, sanctions really became what we know them today, which is this targeted approach.
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So there are still a few countries that are subject to full-scale embargoes.
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Um Iran, Cuba, North Korea.
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Uh, and those are, you know, Cuba obviously is the US only, but Iran, North Korea, those all have you know multilateral components to them.
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The UN does not have any longer, you know, comprehensive embargoes on any country.
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Um in the mid-90s, we began to see this idea of targeting um and really the kind of way we think about sanctions today, which is uh, and I'm happy to get into all the legal nitty-gritty of how we do it in the US, but a little bit, yeah.
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We'll get there in a bit.
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But essentially the idea became look, we don't want to impose these kinds of costs on a whole country.
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We should just target those who are responsible for whatever our concern is.
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And that started in the mid-90s, actually, with the Middle East, uh, with conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine.
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Sadly, we still see sanctions on that front, as you noted.
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Um, but that has evolved into dealing with individual countries, with global issues, terrorism, corruption, human rights, you name it.
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And the idea of what sanctions are these days, in their essence, is let us take these people who we think are problematic people or companies, and we're gonna cut them out of the US financial system uh and the you know, or the Western financial system.
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Uh, we're gonna name them and shame them, and we're gonna block their visa access, and we're gonna try to make them into, you know, um, we're gonna try to make them toxic to deal with in one way or another.
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That's the essence of it.
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Uh, it has real life economic impact uh on those people and people around them, um, but there's lots of ways in which they, you know, as you said, do or don't really work.
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Taking it from there, it sounds like it's a big basket with a lot of things in it.
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Right?
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It's you talked about embargo, so we've seen how that evolved in a certain way, going back to the N Smith regime or the apartheid regime.
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Um but you also talk about naming and shaming that often apply more to applies more to individuals than to countries.
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Countries may not have the feeling of an individual.
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I mean, dictators, the psychology, the psychology of it is such a dictators care.
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I mean, I've never seen more a group that is more prone to caring about what people think of them than dictators, right?
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They they invest millions of dollars on their image.
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It's like, I'm killing people, but you want I want you to be nice to me.
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You know?
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Interestingly, I mean I not to interrupt you, but um I mean on that point, we I mean we can get into this, but we you know, we took down when I was part of the Biden administration, you know, the the we did a really an unprecedented thing, which was take down a sanctions program around a group of people in a particular country in Zimbabwe, um, and we continued to sanction them under a few of them under a corruption sanctions regime, including President Miningagwa.
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And the response of the government of Zimbabwe was if the president is sanctioned, the whole country is sanctioned.
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Uh, which is, of course, not true on any fundamental level, but that concept of, you know, l'état sem moi was kind of carried through in their response.
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Sorry.
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Exactly.
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No, it's it's an interesting point that because dictators and these hardcore regimes see that I am l'État, as you're saying, like Rika Tolzid said, if you sanction me, the entire country should suffer.
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If you're insulting me, that means you're insulting the entire country.
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But going back to this, so the various tools that we have in this bucket, which is embargo, sanction, let's dissect those.
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How have they worked and what have been the limitations, the way you've seen them?
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So let's look at embargo.
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I don't remember at this point, I think there is no African country that is under embargo, but we know Cuba.
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Sudan was the last one.
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Sudan was the last one.
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But today, curiously, Sudan is actually in the midst of a big crisis, and it talks about this, so we'll get back to those.
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But let's just see a couple countries that are under embargo today.
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Um, how is that working?
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Um you know, I think for me, the question of whether something is working and whether sanctions work, uh, and and not to shift the discussion, but sanctions are a proxy for policy, right?
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I mean, you said it.
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They are meant to be an instrument or a tool of policy.
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And my, you know, on, I mean, I've worked on sanctions now for 25 years, and and in all of the conversations around do sanctions work, um, to me, it is a proxy for the conversation of do we have a policy that works?
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If we have a policy that works, and then we can actually look in the toolbox and look in the kit and say, okay, how are we going to disrupt the situation to get to the policy objective we want, um, then sanctions work.
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I think in the case of the embargoes that we still have, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and I'm not an expert in any of these places, um, but I think you would look at them and say, these are all places that have been subject to pretty wide-ranging embargoes for decades, and we haven't seen the kind of shift that we are told the policy is designed to get to, right?
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All of these places have suffered immensely from sanctions.
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So I think you would say the sanctions have worked.
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The sanctions have imposed real costs on people, they've imposed real costs on these countries.
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Um the tool is effective, but we don't have a policy through which that can actually bring about real change.
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Now, the real exception to this was Iran, where in the during the Obama administration, uh there was a real shift in how that embargo um worked in terms of targeting different kinds of actors and more importantly, enforcing against banks and international uh actors outside of Iran who were responsible for ongoing transactions that related to Iran that were allowing Iran to evade sanctions.
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And once banks started getting multi-million, in some cases billion-dollar penalties, that really started to clamp down on Iran's ability to continue to transact in the global financial system.
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And you saw them come to the negotiating table, but you saw them come to the table around a very focused issue.
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So I think the the takeaway for me around when sanctions work is when you have A, is your foreign policy objective clear?
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Do we know why we're doing this?
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And B, is are the is the use of a tool something that can actually disrupt behavior in a way that can get the target to the negotiating table?
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I mean, what I'll say sort of as a you know, some of my theories about this, right?
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You hear sanctions described as a behavior change tool.
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I think that's wrong.
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Sanctions are a punch in the face, in my they are a behavior disruption tool.
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They are designed to create leverage to get you to what is real behavior change, which is diplomacy.
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At the end of the day, negotiations, diplomacy, treaties, agreements, that's when behavior changes.
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Sanctions are you're punching somebody in the face to say, I need you to get to the table.
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Um and when you can get somebody to the table to talk about a fairly concrete set of issues, you're more likely to get an outcome.
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So these big picture embargoes, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, I mean, at the end of the day, the policy is, whether they say it or not, regime change.
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And no level of sanctions is really going to bring that about in and of itself.
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You have to have different kinds of policy measures and policy tools in place that allow that to happen.
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Now, you know, more recently we've seen the change in Syria, right?
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And Syria was subject to not exactly the same kind of embargo, but one similar to it.
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And although it took 15 years, eventually sanctions were a piece of the puzzle that allowed that to shift.
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Um, and then the final thing I'll say on Sudan, yeah, we had us we had a basically a comprehensive embargo on Sudan for 20 years.
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And I don't think anyone would look at it and say it was successful.
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Um it resulted in a lot of impact on Sudan, um, on the Sudanese people, on the Sudanese banking system.
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Um that really made it challenging for Sudan to have a meaningful transition later.
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And so the impact of what happened on that embargo, I think is really there's a lot to be drawn out from that.
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Um but all that to say, look, you know, when we're evaluating whether these big picture embargoes work or any sanctions work, you have to start with what what what's the policy?
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What are we trying to achieve?
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Speaking of policy and what we're trying to achieve, if we take that perspective, I'll argue that if we got to the sanction, I mean the policy is failing.
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Let's say diplomacy is fail, right?
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That's the the point, right?
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If diplomacy, if if really it's about engaging with these countries, and we say we were talking to them, meaning we, meaning the international community, in your case, the US government, since you're wearing the US government hat, if we've been engaging with them to change behavior or to get some leverage on whatever that uh the US or other countries want from them, and we get to the point where we have to punch them in the face, uh quote unquote, that means diplomacy has failed.
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Well, it's maybe either it's failed or it needs it needs some help, right?
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And sometimes you need a little leverage.
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And maybe, you know, it could be in some cases, you know, and and this is where, frankly, to my mind, sanctions, especially around Sudan and DRC and other things, is that we're sometimes punching the wrong people, right?
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At the end of the day, when you look at the enablers uh and whether you know diplomacy, diplomacy may be failing in Sudan, not because of the Sudanese actors, but because of the role of the UAE.
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Um or in the DRC, if we're trying to think about just the DRC and Rwanda, and we need to think about who where is the where is their leverage such that if we if we disrupted the way certain economic actors were playing, it would change the calculation of the people we're trying to be engaged in with diplomatically.
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Um so that means minerals traders, that means people down the line, that means China, that means Hong Kong, that means, again, the UAE.
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So sanctions, when they work effectively and strategically, are, you know, they're trying to change the dynamic and change the calculation of how your diplomacy is working.
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And and and in situations where the economics matter, the diplomacy is rarely just the US and the other country.
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You have to think about all the other factors and all the other places they're connected.
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Um, and can you be disruptive of those?
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And I would say one of the reasons that I think you know we can get to it, but sanctions in a lot of the situations in which we've applied them in the last, you know, decade or two decades in Sub-Saharan Africa have failed to achieve any kind of diplomatic breakthrough is because we're not willing to target these outside enablers.
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Like we're willing to target African leaders or African combatants, but we're not really often willing to target people outside, and that and that's different than how we handle it in Russia and Iran and other places.
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On that point, that's where the perspective or the the argument that says this is the West imposing its will on us, i.e.
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the rest of the world.
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So if you look at the West, you know, Cuba is in the Western smear, but if we stay with Africa, you know if you look at Cuba, for instance, or Sudan and other countries, you're talking about the people.
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So the peoples here, if we put it in plural, we have the regime, the people in power, but then we have the population at large.
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So whether we're talking about Cuba or North Korea or Sudan, we end up with a situation whereby the people are actually suffering.
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Where the when the sanction is negatively effective, is on the cost, the hard cost you say it's imposing, but that hard cost is actually shouldered by the population at large.
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I I would push back on that to some degree and say um that is an easy, that is often an easy excuse for the regime in power to say we would love to be taking care of our people, but sanctions.
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That's usually untrue, right?
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And that's really meant to be the benefit of or the benefit of the approach of targeting, is that you can just be looking at an individual or and their companies and their network.
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And it is important to know, and certainly there are ways in which the the fact that there are sanctions on high-level leaders will affect whether or not a bank or a company is willing to invest in a certain place.
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But, you know, I don't I don't think it's fair to say that the leaders of, you know, that Bashir would have been taking care of the people of Sudan but for sanctions, or that Miningagwa or Mugabe would have really had the interest of the people at heart but for sanctions.
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Do sanctions make it harder?
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Sure.
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And should the West think more creatively about how it imposes sanctions in ways to mitigate the impact on the population?
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Of course.
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That requires that requires, frankly, Western diplomats and political politic and policymakers to actually understand the tools they're imposing, which I think in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, often we have not had people, and again, I say this lovingly, having been at state twice and working with many of these people who don't understand how the tools work.
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So if the people, if your diplomats and your policymakers don't really understand the tools, then they can't really be there to help figure out how to make them uh help mitigate and find creative solutions, whether that's with licensing or you know, there are there are ways that the sanctions administrators have to ease impact, but they have to know the information and they have to be able to ensure that it's part of the right policy.
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So that stuff can be done if you're people mess understand.
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But but like, you know, look, no one I just think Yeah, the people aren't suffering because of sanctions in this case.
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No, it's not I I I think I will come back on that because the argument here is not that well, these people, the regime cannot deliver for us because you put sanctions.
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That's not that's what the regime will say.
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The average, the average person living in Zimbabwe or living in in Sudan will say there's certain things that have been put in place now, there's some restriction, whether it be economics and that is having an impact on us.
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They're not necessarily thinking, oh, our leader will deliver better if these sanctions were not in place.
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Sure.
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So there's a cost.
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I mean, if you look at Cuba, 100%, we cannot say there is no cost.
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I mean, the communists did what the communists did, but the average person who hardly believes in this communism has been suffering for the last 60 decades, six decades.
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Yeah.
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But I I mean, look, I agree.
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And I and my last statement is like we can't blame sanctions for what people are suffering.
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You can.
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And we have two good examples of this, and I think it's they're both important.
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On Sudan, you had, as I mentioned, from 97 to 2017, a comprehensive sanctions embargo in place.
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As a result of that, when the transition happened in 2019, uh, you know, and I was working then at the NGO of the century, and we were working closely with the U.S.
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government and helping the U.S.
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government engage with banks because there were No US or Western banks that had really any direct relationships.
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So as the Sudanese transition was trying to stabilize the economy, there were no banks with really clear direct access to dollars.
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And that was a result of sanctions.
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And we spent a couple of years trying to push them towards it and saying, look, the sanctions are all gone.
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And so that this is where my point comes in is that the bank's response was, okay, the sanctions are gone.
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This is still a really risky place to do business.
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And so there are many other factors that we have to think about when we're doing business than just sanctions.
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But it is clear that sanctions had created a level of risk around Sudan that was too hard to unwind in that intervening period from 2019 to 21.
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In Zimbabwe, you know, the Mugabe and Meningawa regimes for more than two decades had made Zimbabwe made sanctions, you know, it became their scarlet letter that they wore happily to tell the population it's all because of sanctions.
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So part of the idea of taking down the sanctions, which we did in 2020, 24, you know, the a full Biden administration, you know, interagency team that worked together over 18 months to eventually end the Zimbabwe sanctions, put some people on a different list.
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I then went to Zimbabwe and met with a lot of people in the private sector, and they said, you know, it's great that the sanctions are gone, but we still have all this trouble doing business.
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We then convened meetings with US banks when I got back from that trip, and we met with a number of banks who said, okay, the sanctions are gone.
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There's still all these reasons where it's really hard for us to do business in Zimbabwe.
00:23:47.359 --> 00:23:53.839
And so again, the sanctions had the sanctions had put on the bank's radar, this is really risky.
00:23:54.079 --> 00:24:08.319
But then the level of corruption, the level of just institutional challenge of doing business in uh in a dictatorial regime come into place and come into play when companies are thinking about what they will do.
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:12.799
Sanctions become an easy foil and say that's because of the sanctions.
00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:18.960
But you know, it's a more complicated picture, but it is something that is important for policymakers to think about.
00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:26.079
It's easy to they're, you know, like any regulation, they're easy to impose, they're really hard to take off, and they have lasting consequences like this.
00:24:26.480 --> 00:24:33.279
And it's uh it raises the question of who is the stakeholder in this process of sanctions, right?
00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:35.039
Who who brings them about?
00:24:35.279 --> 00:24:44.640
So in a country like the United States, we have a plethora of actors that can advocate and mobilize for this.
00:24:44.799 --> 00:24:45.759
Who are those?
00:24:46.880 --> 00:24:49.440
I mean, how does it really how have you seen it come together?
00:24:49.920 --> 00:24:53.039
I mean, it differs in every it differs in so many contexts.
00:24:53.200 --> 00:25:06.799
I mean, at the end of the day, um the you know, the the Treasury Department and to a little bit of a degree now the State Department have, you know, usually have the authority to impose sanctions, right?
00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:24.480
In the US, the very quick summary is that there is a law that gives the president the ability to declare a national emergency and on a particular country, a particular threat, and then essentially create a tool, sanctions, to deal with that threat.
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:34.000
Um, and there are usually criteria that says anybody who is doing these things, engaged in corruption, human rights abuse, fomenting conflict, can be sanctioned.
00:25:34.079 --> 00:25:39.279
And then that's when the stakeholders come in and say, okay, now you've got to start adding these people.
00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:40.799
Look, that can come from anywhere.
00:25:40.880 --> 00:25:43.440
It can come from within the government, within the agencies.
00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:51.759
Uh, it can come from the Hill, people in Congress saying we need to do something, NGOs, the diaspora, um, allies.
00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:58.640
Um, there are lots of ideas about lots of people who will come with ideas about why this should happen.
00:25:58.799 --> 00:26:01.599
I think that there are two things to think about in these cases.
00:26:01.839 --> 00:26:06.000
One is, again, back to the question of for what?
00:26:06.319 --> 00:26:10.240
Like sanctions won't work unless you know unless you know for what.
00:26:10.319 --> 00:26:18.559
And a lot of these folks don't really have a clear um clearly articulated view about what the policy goal is, right?
00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:22.160
And if the policy goal is stop a war, then the sanctions won't work.
00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:26.240
If the policy goal is regime change, the sanctions probably won't work.
00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:31.759
If the if you can start to make the goals, the objective more achievable.
00:26:31.920 --> 00:26:43.359
And we have a good example from when the US decided, along with allies, to really push back on Joseph Kabila running for a third term and imposed a series of sanctions designed to do that.
00:26:43.759 --> 00:26:48.400
They were a part of the overall policy picture that made that an effective objective.
00:26:48.559 --> 00:26:53.279
But you have lots of folks who will come and say, um, something needs to be done.
00:26:53.359 --> 00:26:55.359
And I always think about this in two ways.
00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:58.079
Either sometimes those sanctions are imposed.
00:26:58.160 --> 00:26:59.839
They're either about us or they're about them.
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:16.079
So when they're about them, meaning the people on the conflict on the ground, it's because we've identified a policy objective that we think is achievable if we just, again, we punch a few people in the face, we get some leverage, we disrupt the situation so that diplomacy can work.
00:27:16.240 --> 00:27:20.880
In other cases, frankly, it's about us, meaning we just have to say we did something, right?
00:27:21.039 --> 00:27:26.799
The situation is bad enough, or something is wrong on the ground, and we don't have a policy.
00:27:26.960 --> 00:27:29.599
And so then sanctions become a proxy for policy.
00:27:29.680 --> 00:27:49.920
And we we can just say when, you know, when the assistant secretary or deputy assistant secretary is on the hill and they get an angry question from a member of Congress, they can say, Yes, we did something, or when an NGO writes a blistering letter, and having worked at an NGO and done these things, like the policymakers sometimes just want to say we did something.
00:27:50.079 --> 00:27:51.920
And the truth is they don't have a policy.
00:27:52.079 --> 00:27:57.920
And in that case, when sanctions are the policy, then you know nothing is really going to be achieved.
00:27:58.319 --> 00:28:07.920
Yeah, and it's um it's it's it's tough because you know, you describe a few of the situations where they went on for 30 25 years, you know.
00:28:08.079 --> 00:28:10.960
The case of Cuba, it's been six decades and so on.
00:28:11.279 --> 00:28:13.920
And you just wonder, that's the question, right?
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:16.240
It's it's even beyond philosophical.
00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:17.920
It's like, what is this for?
00:28:18.079 --> 00:28:19.119
What are we trying to achieve?
00:28:19.839 --> 00:28:20.559
Where are we lost?
00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:21.680
Yeah, we've lost the thread.
00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:30.160
And and one thing I but one I do want to make a one point, though, about the there are lots of people who will come, as I said, and advocate and say you've got to impose sanctions.
00:28:30.319 --> 00:28:55.839
There is a real, and this maybe is too in the weeds for the podcast, but you know, there's a very clear legal process that you go through inside the agencies to develop evidence, put together a document that the director of the Treasury Department of OFAC, the agency at the Treasury Department that administers sanctions, or the relevant person at state will sign off on that can be challenged in court.
00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:10.960
So even when there are lots of people, lots of stakeholders saying, do this, don't do that, sometimes even at the White House saying we need to do something, you still have to get through a process to figure out who's targeted that meets a legal sufficiency criteria.
00:29:11.039 --> 00:29:22.160
And sometimes when there's a difference between who we think sanctions should be imposed on and who they actually are, sometimes it's actually not because the wrong stakeholders were involved, but because the legal issues aren't there.
00:29:22.240 --> 00:29:35.200
And I think it's an important piece of the puzzle that people often miss in these conversations of like there's what we'd like to do sanctions-wise, and what we think might be effective, and then what we actually can do because there's a legal process to it, at least for now, anyway.
00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:38.079
Of course, you are a lawyer, so yeah, that prism is important.
00:29:38.400 --> 00:29:39.920
I gotta throw in the legal, yeah, exactly.
00:29:40.079 --> 00:29:40.960
Yeah, but blame.
00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:47.119
The few cases that you mentioned also have different differences in them.
00:29:47.279 --> 00:29:50.640
So Cuba is not at war.
00:29:51.039 --> 00:29:55.519
Yeah, the the uh the sanction might as well be a war for them.
00:29:55.759 --> 00:30:00.799
Um then you have a country like Syria, which is in at war.
00:30:01.200 --> 00:30:04.559
So the uh how those dynamics change?
00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:14.480
Because a war situation drives a certain way of a certain view or certain views in plural, how people see this, what should be done right now.
00:30:14.720 --> 00:30:22.000
Whereas places where it's ideological, places like Cuba, I I see that as more ideological for lack of a better word.
00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:25.440
How do you think those dynamics were uh play out?
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:39.359
I mean, look, I mean, I don't think anybody who is a part of the sanctions world, um, you know, sanctions geeks, people who've worked on the agency, I don't think anybody looks at Cuba and says, this is the way this should be done, right?
00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:58.960
I mean, it is at the end of the day, sanctions are a policy tool, they are a political tool, and the truth is that the po politicians and policymakers at senior levels, other than, you know, during a brief moment during the end of the Obama administration, have been willing to do anything of it, have been really willing to make a disruption to it for one reason or another.
00:30:59.119 --> 00:31:03.759
Obviously, I mean, look, Secretary of State Rubio has made it very clear that it's important to him.
00:31:03.920 --> 00:31:08.079
Um, so maybe there will be a level of change in the policy.
00:31:08.160 --> 00:31:23.759
But that that is the example of like sanctions are just there and they're hard to get rid of and hard to do anything about because frankly the dynamic just becomes an impasse and there's no real policy movement other than we're just gonna make this as hard as possible.
00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:33.839
And in that case, but in that case, it's also interesting because the US goes to Venezuela and then they say we're gonna make sure that Cuba suffers even more.
00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:37.759
Which is like, okay, what is all this about?
00:31:38.559 --> 00:31:43.200
I mean, I mean, it's about I mean, I think it's about it's clearly about regime change there.
00:31:43.279 --> 00:31:44.400
They've been pretty clear about it.
00:31:44.559 --> 00:32:15.920
But you know, I think to some degree, if nothing else, again, not deciding whether or not it's good policy or not, um, but the fact that there is a willingness to, and Venezuela was also very heavily sanctioned, uh, and you know, that there is a willingness for the US to enforce its Venezuela related sanctions in a way that affects Cuba, again, speaking just technically about how do you make these things work, well, that's more effective.
00:32:16.000 --> 00:32:28.880
That's at least a way of trying to make the Cuba sanctions, the the effect on the Cuban regime uh meaningful, like and it's a real punch in the face, as opposed to just having them sit there and have really the people suffer.
00:32:29.119 --> 00:32:31.759
In this case, you're again, I'm not an expert on this.
00:32:31.839 --> 00:32:33.599
I'm not saying it's a good idea or a bad idea.
00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:37.680
I'm saying at some level, sanctions require policy action.
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:41.359
They require a dynamic policy that you're trying to influence.
00:32:41.519 --> 00:32:44.559
And if the policy is stale, well then the sanctions are stale.
00:32:44.720 --> 00:32:50.640
And the policy in the case of Venezuela and Cuba is actually now much less stale than it has been for a long time.
00:32:50.880 --> 00:32:59.599
In the case of Syria, or I mean Russia is probably even the more stronger example about what happens when you there's a war and you're trying to impose sanctions.
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:03.200
Um in my view, sanctions don't stop wars.
00:33:03.359 --> 00:33:03.839
They can't.
00:33:04.079 --> 00:33:20.400
I mean, once people have guns and they are on the battlefield, you will not stop the war purely from sanctions again, unless you have a policy, a diplomatic strategy and a diplomatic approach that will force the two sides to get to the table.
00:33:20.559 --> 00:33:28.720
And whether you look at Sudan, and you know, we were working towards that, I would argue, in the Biden administration, and then part of the way through we stopped.
00:33:28.799 --> 00:33:32.079
Um, and part and I think we stopped, frankly, because of the UAE.
00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:38.799
Um in Syria and in Russia, I would argue it we've in in both cases, the U.S.
00:33:38.960 --> 00:33:56.799
imposed significant sanctions on Russia, on Syria, but there was an unwillingness to take the sanctions imposition to the foreign, uh essentially to the foreign uh enablers of those warring sides to really bring it to an end, right?
00:33:56.880 --> 00:34:02.559
And so when you look at what the Trump administration has done, there's a lot of criticism that they've stopped on Russia sanctions.
00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:10.880
But they've been pretty direct about stopping some of the oil revenue in a way that the Biden administration wasn't willing to do.
00:34:11.039 --> 00:34:26.639
Um again, I'm not an expert on this, but it is it's an interesting dynamic that they're willing to go attack India, for example, target target India with sanctions around oil from Russia in a way that is actually pretty disruptive to the Russians.
00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:30.719
Um, but you know, in other cases we haven't been willing to do willing to do that.
00:34:30.880 --> 00:34:48.159
And to my mind, the failure in Sudan, which I think if you look at from a how do sanctions play out in a war context, is you know, ended up not working because we were not willing to go to the level we needed to go to disrupt the people who were really behind that conflict.
00:34:48.320 --> 00:34:55.039
Um, and when you're not willing to do that, then sanctions are just sanctions at that point are gonna be more about us than them.
00:34:55.119 --> 00:34:58.400
They're gonna say, there was a war, we imposed sanctions, we tried.
00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:01.119
And you know, I I that's not good enough to my mind.
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:15.280
But that brings us to another point, which is so after the international community, in this case the US Department of Treasury put all this pressure, sanctions on these countries, goes on for a long time, uh often, not all the time, but a long time.
00:35:15.599 --> 00:35:21.360
When they end, there typically is no better outcome either.
00:35:21.519 --> 00:35:27.760
Like these countries are often left and this population are left still reeling from the pain that they went through.
00:35:27.920 --> 00:35:33.599
So there is no there's no all of a sudden celebration at the end, or now things are better, right?
00:35:33.760 --> 00:35:39.599
So if the economy is crippled, the economy does not rebound the next day or for the next 10 years, you know.
00:35:39.679 --> 00:35:42.559
So the crisis kind of now has a momentum with its own.
00:35:42.719 --> 00:35:45.440
There's an inertia there that creates this thing.
00:35:45.599 --> 00:35:45.679
Yeah.
00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:49.360
Well, I look, I think, I mean, the bigger point there is that we don't take them off very often.
00:35:49.440 --> 00:36:05.920
I mean, the Zimbabwe change that we made during the judge the Biden administration was almost unprecedented in taking down a sanctions program at a time in which you would say, I mean, the the language that we used was the policy hasn't changed, but the tools have.
00:36:06.079 --> 00:36:10.320
We shifted the way we were going to use sanctions to focusing on corruption and human rights.
00:36:10.559 --> 00:36:15.440
Um and there were, you know, there were people that were happy about that shift.
00:36:15.599 --> 00:36:24.320
Um, but yeah, you you leave behind a much, you know, the as you say, there's not, it doesn't turn around the next day.
00:36:24.480 --> 00:36:25.440
The situation is bad.
00:36:25.519 --> 00:36:27.440
The situation's bad for lots of reasons.
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:31.199
Sanctions are just a piece of the puzzle, um, but they are bad.
00:36:31.360 --> 00:36:41.039
But sanctions will have made it such that banking in particular is hard to reinstate because banks will have had will have risk models.
00:36:41.360 --> 00:36:50.159
And the longer sanctions are there, most banks or financial institutions more generally will have risk models that say this is a risky place to do business.
00:36:50.320 --> 00:36:54.079
And it doesn't go from red to green the day the sanctions come off.
00:36:54.320 --> 00:37:02.719
Again, there might be other issues, corruptions, money, corruption, money laundering, governance, rule of law, all these other things that come into play.
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:08.000
But sanctions sort of put you in that high lit risk category, and it's really hard to come down from.
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:20.639
I think Syria, you know, there has been basically a pretty comprehensive removal of sanctions in Syria, uh prompted by President Trump over the last six months or so.
00:37:20.880 --> 00:37:26.559
Um, and you know, it takes it takes a lot of effort to rebuild the economy.
00:37:26.639 --> 00:37:34.400
Obviously, that's a an economy that was completely obliterated by the Civil War, by decades of abuse by the Assad regime.
00:37:34.639 --> 00:37:45.440
And really the question then is how much are Western diplomats and Western government uh Western policymakers willing to spend time rebuilding to help the country rebuild, right?
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:58.639
I mean, you saw this after the Iran nuclear deal in 2015-2016, you had a bunch of different people from Treasury and State going to banks saying, please, we just took off these sanctions in Iran, please do business with them.
00:37:58.880 --> 00:38:05.119
And most banks were sort of in that were weren't willing to do it because they weren't sure that that removal was gonna last.
00:38:05.199 --> 00:38:06.639
And they turned it out to be right.
00:38:06.800 --> 00:38:14.159
So you have, you know, that's another part of the context is you can take the sanctions off, but do people worry they're gonna come right back in again?
00:38:14.320 --> 00:38:22.159
Uh, and if companies are gonna be willing to really invest, then they need stability and predictability.
00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:24.639
And, you know, you don't find that in these countries.
00:38:24.719 --> 00:38:31.360
So I I guess that's another piece of the puzzle is again, we don't really reverse sanctions very often.
00:38:31.519 --> 00:38:34.639
That's a problem, that's a flaw in the way we administer them.
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:39.360
And when we do, we don't usually put as much weight behind doing it.
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:53.440
I mean, again, from 2019 to 21, many of us were advocating begging the US government to do much more to help Sudan, the Sudan tradition, the Sudanese transition, get economic help.
00:38:53.599 --> 00:38:59.599
And it was very slow, and people were and the policymakers were you know, they were diverted elsewhere.
00:38:59.760 --> 00:39:07.199
Um, and that was, you know, I think that played a part in the coup that happened in 2021 and the conflict that we have today.
00:39:07.760 --> 00:39:14.559
So the ramification the the snowball effect is can be pretty pretty uh impressive in that way, pretty tremendous.
00:39:15.360 --> 00:39:22.639
You work in the Great Lakes region, so when we first met, you were working in that space, which were minerals and militias and so on.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:29.920
In the Great Lakes, Africa's Great Lakes here, so we're talking about DRC, Uganda, and and Rwanda and Tanzania and others.
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:32.400
We saw a couple of things there.
00:39:32.559 --> 00:39:36.480
One, DRC for a long time had arms embargo imposed on DRC.
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:40.320
That's obviously not the US, but is a UN regime system.
00:39:41.199 --> 00:39:46.719
Um that was a situation that cannot be explained to the Congolese.
00:39:46.800 --> 00:40:01.760
It's like Congolese are saying we are at war, we've been we have militias, we have a weak arm, we have all kinds of things, we have embargoes, but the enablers of this conflict, i.e., Rwanda, Uganda, and others, are not under the same regime.
00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:02.320
Right?
00:40:02.559 --> 00:40:04.239
What was that all about?
00:40:04.639 --> 00:40:11.039
Um, I mean, I I view that, I mean, that's just the politics of what gets through.
00:40:11.119 --> 00:40:13.280
I mean, as you say, that's a Security Council.
00:40:13.440 --> 00:40:18.880
Um, that's the Security Council, and that's the politics of the Security Council, uh, sadly.
00:40:19.039 --> 00:40:27.360
I mean, the the in the 2000s, um, the UN Security Council was actually quite active and quite dynamic in how it thought about sanctions.
00:40:27.440 --> 00:40:41.760
Both, I mean, the UN also has a targeting, a targeted sanctions approach um on the DRC, on Sudan, on South Sudan, uh, it did on Liberia, Cote d'Or, on Mali, quite a number of programs.
00:40:41.840 --> 00:40:46.880
They have panels of experts who do research and they use travel bans and arms embargoes.
00:40:47.119 --> 00:41:08.880
And um, you know, at the end of the day, the reason that is much we see many fewer UN actions these days, and when we see them, the ones we see are almost uniformly kind of yawned at is because what's possible to get the all the Security Council members to agree to, right?
00:41:09.039 --> 00:41:27.840
So if you think about the Security Council has to agree by unanimity, and getting the US, China, and Russia to agree on, let alone you know, whichever are the three African members of the Security Council at a given time, getting them all to agree, you know, um, is nearly impossible, right?
00:41:27.920 --> 00:41:35.679
And so you would have had you know backers of Rwanda and Uganda and others basically saying, don't bring us into this.
00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:46.480
And but you just think you just think on a very common sense ago, if the belligerent are known, the embargo should be put on both sides.
00:41:46.559 --> 00:41:48.960
So that's one way to drive to peace, right?
00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:50.159
100%.
00:41:50.639 --> 00:41:51.760
You know, so yeah.
00:41:51.920 --> 00:41:58.480
I mean, arms embargoes in general, I think, have proved very problematic to enforce uh for lots of different reasons.
00:41:58.639 --> 00:42:05.280
And so, you know, whether there had really been an arms embargo on Rwanda-Uganda, I don't know how much effect it would have had in the end.
00:42:05.360 --> 00:42:27.840
Again, because back to the policy thing, unless the unless the international community really is focused in its policy attention on solving the conflict, um, and the arms embargo will be meaningfully enforced in a way that will actually stop weapons flowing, you know, these end up being often adopted, but but in a way that is um, yeah, that's not useful.
00:42:28.159 --> 00:42:37.519
So that's a international community consensus that it's time to stop a conflict in a place like Eastern Congo, sadly, has not existed, in my in my opinion.
00:42:37.760 --> 00:42:38.159
Exactly.
00:42:38.400 --> 00:42:48.880
So, you know, so there's I think the same way we were talking about enablers when we started talking about sanctions, even these cases of the several embargoes, is the same story.
00:42:49.119 --> 00:42:53.199
And I don't think uh you may disagree, or maybe you can enlighten us.
00:42:53.519 --> 00:42:57.920
There's no system to go after the enablers in any meaningful ways.
00:42:58.079 --> 00:42:59.679
Um, there should be, right?
00:42:59.920 --> 00:43:03.280
So arm sales and things, it's it's a let you know.
00:43:03.360 --> 00:43:04.159
Let's see, Victor.
00:43:04.559 --> 00:43:07.280
We had a couple situations though, where like Victor Boots.
00:43:07.760 --> 00:43:10.800
Yeah, so Victor Boots he was sanctioned.
00:43:10.880 --> 00:43:14.079
Can you talk a little bit about what what was at play then?
00:43:14.239 --> 00:43:15.760
How did this come to be?
00:43:15.840 --> 00:43:17.840
Because he was around for a long time.
00:43:18.079 --> 00:43:22.159
You named the conflict, allegiably was involved, right?
00:43:22.480 --> 00:43:23.039
Yeah.
00:43:23.280 --> 00:43:26.480
Look, I mean, he was sanctioned actually under two sanctions programs.
00:43:26.559 --> 00:43:32.800
He was sanctioned uh under the DRC, but also the Liberia, Sierra Leone, uh, because he'd had a role there.
00:43:33.039 --> 00:43:38.639
Um and then eventually I would just say it was exchanged, then he's back uh and then it was exchanged, yeah.
00:43:38.719 --> 00:43:45.920
So uh I I mean again, it's I mean the the behavior change uh again in those kinds of situations.
00:43:46.159 --> 00:43:53.679
I mean, again, I was saying earlier that that sanctions are a punch in the face, it's behavior disruption, not change, and that you change diplomatically.
00:43:53.840 --> 00:44:00.639
When you're trying to target just a criminal, behavior change is uh law enforcement, getting them arrested, putting Them behind bars.
00:44:00.719 --> 00:44:02.559
That's what happened to Victor Boot eventually.
00:44:03.199 --> 00:44:03.920
I would disagree.
00:44:04.079 --> 00:44:06.800
I think there are tools to target enablers.
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:23.519
Every sanctions program, at least in the US, almost every, and even at the UN as well, has a provision that says anybody that's providing financial support, material support, technical assistance, financial assistance to somebody on the sanctions list can be sanctioned.
00:44:23.760 --> 00:44:29.760
And war often, not just to somebody on the list, but to the issues that are at play.
00:44:29.840 --> 00:44:39.039
So somebody providing financial support in advan in uh financial assistance to support human rights violations in a particular place can be sanctioned.
00:44:39.199 --> 00:44:43.440
That's a political will question, not a not a capacity question.
00:44:43.679 --> 00:44:55.599
We have the ability, we have had the ability throughout the executive order on Sudan was imposed in May 2023 to target actors in the UAE.
00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:00.719
We have, and we did a little bit, but we haven't really been willing to do it at the level needed.
00:45:01.039 --> 00:45:06.960
We one thing that we are often not willing to do, and this was also the case in Sudan, is target spoilers, right?
00:45:07.119 --> 00:45:08.239
To target those.
00:45:08.480 --> 00:45:22.159
So we were arguing, for example, and I was at the century that there should have been a sanctions program during the democratic transition to stop those who want to see that democratic transition fail and their enablers.
00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:30.880
Um but the the enablers, the problem is the enablers are often in the UAE, China, India, Turkey.
00:45:31.039 --> 00:45:37.519
They're in countries that are strategically important to the US or the West for other reasons, and those reasons always went out.
00:45:37.679 --> 00:45:48.320
I mean, at the end of the day, I mean, Judd made the point at the end of the at the end of the your discussion with him, you were saying, you know, people knew that Mabutu was going to be a dictator.
00:45:48.559 --> 00:45:50.079
Why didn't they act differently?
00:45:50.159 --> 00:45:58.239
And Judd made the point with sometimes the CIA does the analysis and says, here's what we know, and the policymaker says, thanks, I hear you.
00:45:58.400 --> 00:45:59.599
I've got other priorities.
00:45:59.760 --> 00:46:01.199
That's the case on sanctions.
00:46:01.440 --> 00:46:17.119
There were lots of discussions throughout the Biden administration on if we want to have meaningful sanctions that go after the enablers in Sudan, in Congo, um, in other parts of the continent, we need to be able to target actors and on the minerals trade.
00:46:17.199 --> 00:46:23.760
You know, where are the minerals, where are where is a lot of that illicit minerals trade across the continent?
00:46:23.920 --> 00:46:28.239
You know, you look at the UAE, you look at China, you look at Turkey, you look at India.
00:46:28.480 --> 00:46:38.800
When when those decisions or when those recommendations would go to senior decision makers at state or at the White House, it would usually be, okay, I hear you, we're not going to do that.
00:46:38.960 --> 00:46:43.440
Because we don't want to disrupt our, we don't want to disrupt what we have going on in other areas.
00:46:43.599 --> 00:46:56.000
And that's, you know, that's to me, the real problem with sub- is the way sanctions have played out across sub-Saharan Africa is as we were saying at the beginning, we don't actually know what our policy often is.
00:46:56.159 --> 00:46:57.440
Like what are we trying to achieve?
00:46:57.599 --> 00:47:07.519
And even when we do, the things we the people we need to disrupt to do it are the enablers and these other places, which the US is sadly always going to prioritize.
00:47:07.599 --> 00:47:19.760
Uh and and the and the enablers and spoilers are often US partners in other areas, people say you know, the case of Rwanda is a partner in many other places around the world.
00:47:19.920 --> 00:47:21.840
So, what do you do about this situation?
00:47:22.159 --> 00:47:25.039
I want to go, I want to go to the finance side of things.
00:47:25.119 --> 00:47:26.639
We have a few minutes left.
00:47:26.880 --> 00:47:27.119
Yeah.
00:47:27.360 --> 00:47:30.639
So on the on the finance side, we've seen then Gettler.
00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:32.880
So the Global Magnitsky Act.
00:47:33.039 --> 00:47:33.519
Yeah.
00:47:33.920 --> 00:47:42.159
We saw somebody like Dan Gettler being sanctioned over the DRC, talking about mineral resources and and and and as such.
00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:46.400
And there's this Belgian brothers in uh in Uganda, I think.
00:47:48.159 --> 00:47:48.880
Alain Getz.
00:47:49.440 --> 00:47:51.840
Yeah, they get with uh with the refinery.
00:47:52.400 --> 00:47:52.800
Yep.
00:47:53.119 --> 00:47:55.039
What is your sense of that?
00:47:55.119 --> 00:47:56.320
And is it working?
00:47:56.480 --> 00:48:02.159
Because again, with Dan Gettler, the Israeli magnate, we see that there was this pressure on him.
00:48:02.400 --> 00:48:14.559
Then the Trump administration came under the Biden, so there was pressure, sanction imposed, Trump administration tried to lift it up, and then now we talk, and then the DRC also gets in its own arrangement with Dan Gettler.
00:48:14.639 --> 00:48:17.360
Yeah, I don't even know where the things stand today.
00:48:17.599 --> 00:48:23.679
Uh what do we do with those situations, and what value is there for that?
00:48:24.239 --> 00:48:29.119
I mean, I mean, Dan Gertler and Alan Getz probably need a whole separate podcast, so I'll come back another time.
00:48:29.360 --> 00:48:31.920
And there's another one, Ben It's Metz, Benny, Benny Steinmetz.
00:48:32.239 --> 00:48:32.719
Steinmetz.
00:48:32.800 --> 00:48:33.119
Steinmetz.
00:48:33.440 --> 00:48:34.639
Steinmetz up in Guinea.
00:48:34.719 --> 00:48:35.199
Yeah, exactly.
00:48:35.360 --> 00:48:37.679
In Guinea, Lev Levayev and Angola.
00:48:37.840 --> 00:48:38.639
Uh yeah.
00:48:38.880 --> 00:48:47.679
So look, I I would say on those guys, I mean, actually, it was the Trump administration who imposed sanctions on Dan Gertler and his network in 2017, 2018.
00:48:47.920 --> 00:48:48.079
Exactly.
00:48:48.400 --> 00:48:49.599
And then at the end, yeah, yeah.
00:48:49.760 --> 00:48:53.199
And then at the yeah, and then at the end, they were the ones who reversed themselves.
00:48:53.440 --> 00:49:02.559
Um, but but what was interesting, I look, I think the sanctions on Gertler and Getz, in and of themselves, have been effective.
00:49:02.719 --> 00:49:09.199
Those both of those guys and their networks have been economically diminished, they've had their power diminish.
00:49:09.360 --> 00:49:17.760
Um they have, you know, they have spent, both of them have spent a lot of money and a lot of time trying to get off the sanctions list.
00:49:17.920 --> 00:49:20.000
Uh LN Getz sued the U.S.
00:49:20.079 --> 00:49:20.400
government.
00:49:20.480 --> 00:49:24.639
He lost in a uh in a court case last year.
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:29.679
Um Dan Gertler has hired seemingly every lawyer in D.C.
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:31.280
to try to get off the sanctions list.
00:49:31.360 --> 00:49:32.239
He was negotiating.
00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:36.960
There were lots of press reports about his negotiations with the Biden administration.
00:49:37.119 --> 00:49:47.920
And to a degree, you would say, and you know, he negotiated a deal in 2020, a very flawed deal, but he negotiated a deal with the DRC in 2022 to give up some of his holdings.
00:49:48.159 --> 00:49:54.400
President Chiseketty then wrote to President Biden, the letters available publicly, and said the sanctions worked.
00:49:54.559 --> 00:49:57.519
We got what we needed, now lift the sanctions on him.
00:49:57.760 --> 00:50:08.000
The Biden administration didn't do that, and Trump hasn't yet either, because there were still three more royalty streams that we know of that that Gertler has.
00:50:08.159 --> 00:50:10.880
And the question is, how are you going to get him out of those?
00:50:11.039 --> 00:50:17.119
Um, but look, those guys have had their power, their financing diminished.
00:50:17.519 --> 00:50:20.480
What but there's been a limit, right?
00:50:20.639 --> 00:50:22.079
Getz lives in the UAE.
00:50:22.159 --> 00:50:26.320
The UAE has not been willing to enforce those fully on him and his companies.
00:50:26.559 --> 00:50:31.599
Gertler is protected by the Israelis, uh, and the Israelis advocate for him consistently.
00:50:31.760 --> 00:50:34.480
So the full effect has been limited.
00:50:34.639 --> 00:50:43.679
Um, but those guys, you can't look today and say the way those guys are involved in natural resources is the same as it was 20 years ago.
00:50:43.920 --> 00:50:46.159
So that's sanct that's the effect of sanctions.
00:50:46.239 --> 00:50:47.679
They are a punch in the face.
00:50:47.920 --> 00:51:00.559
The full effect would only be felt if, again, if those guys get arrested or if um the governments that enable and protect them are willing to take real action on them, and that hasn't happened.
00:51:00.719 --> 00:51:13.599
Um, and you know, look, in the DRC more for Gertler than Getz, but in and and in Getz more in Uganda than the DRC, you know, they have there also their political protectors in those governments.
00:51:13.679 --> 00:51:16.320
They have enabled a lot of corruption locally.
00:51:16.719 --> 00:51:20.960
Um, and so there's sanctions are only going to be able to disrupt so much.
00:51:21.039 --> 00:51:30.159
So you'd have to be able to get at, you know, are we willing to sanction people around President Chisaketty because of their connection to Dan Gertler?
00:51:30.559 --> 00:51:31.199
Would we sanction?
00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:33.920
The US considered that at one point, right?
00:51:34.000 --> 00:51:38.079
They were talking about rumors or talks about exactly doing that.
00:51:38.480 --> 00:51:39.440
But you have to do it, right?
00:51:39.519 --> 00:51:43.599
You you know, rumoring that you're gonna punch somebody in the face isn't the same as punching somebody in the face.
00:51:43.679 --> 00:51:48.320
So, I mean, the threat might scare somebody for a while, but at some point you actually have to do it.
00:51:48.480 --> 00:52:03.360
But I think look, these are these are two of the examples of where the targeting um not, you know, targeting outside actors who have come into the continent to exploit its minerals and enable a system of corruption.
00:52:03.519 --> 00:52:07.280
These are two of the frankly rare examples where we've been willing to do that.
00:52:07.360 --> 00:52:22.400
The Gupta Brothers, I mean, it's a slightly more complicated example, but the Gupta Brothers in South Africa is another one where we're willing to target people from outside the continent who are exploiting the weak governance and the corruption for their own benefit.
00:52:22.639 --> 00:52:23.840
And sanctions work.
00:52:24.000 --> 00:52:26.480
Sanctions have really disabled all of those networks.
00:52:26.559 --> 00:52:29.519
Now, not entirely, there's a lot more to do, et cetera.
00:52:29.679 --> 00:52:41.360
Um, there was just sanctions imposed last fall, last summer, last fall on John Crawley, uh and the network of people exploiting uh parts of the three Ts in Eastern Congo.
00:52:41.519 --> 00:52:43.599
So there needs to be much more of that.
00:52:43.920 --> 00:52:55.039
And then really taking that both to their enabling governments um outside and to the Congolese government and saying, look, at some point we're gonna get closer and closer to you.
00:52:55.199 --> 00:53:06.400
So either you need to really shift how these how minerals uh governance and how, frankly, rule of law more generally works and really take steps against corruption, or we're gonna keep coming closer to you.
00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:09.679
And I think again, that's where the political will has lacked.
00:53:09.840 --> 00:53:10.719
Same in Rwanda.
00:53:10.800 --> 00:53:12.719
You know, we sanctioned James Kabarebe.
00:53:13.039 --> 00:53:13.599
Great.
00:53:14.239 --> 00:53:16.079
What about the companies he's connected to?
00:53:16.239 --> 00:53:19.760
What about getting closer, continuing to get closer to President Kigame?
00:53:20.079 --> 00:53:27.760
Um, when the will isn't there, that the impact that sanctions has on these networks is important, but it's not sufficient.
00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:30.639
And again, that's to me, that's not a failure of sanctions.
00:53:30.719 --> 00:53:37.679
That's because we don't have the policy strength or guts or objectives clear enough to make them go all the way.
00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:38.320
Correct.
00:53:38.639 --> 00:53:43.760
But on in the couple minutes that we have remaining, Brad, what's the case for better diplomacy?
00:53:44.159 --> 00:53:48.159
Make the case for better diplomacy as opposed to more sanctions.
00:53:49.440 --> 00:53:50.960
I I think you need both, right?
00:53:51.039 --> 00:53:55.039
I mean, I think diplomacy is made better when we have leverage, right?
00:53:55.199 --> 00:54:24.719
To me, um, if you look at cases, you know, again, whether it's the Kabila example, the Iran nuclear deal, um, Myanmar the first time in the late 2000s, when our diplomats actually understand leverage and can sit down at the table with a target and say, here are the things we need you to do, and we are going to continue to make put pressure on you and your finances and your off-ramp unless you do them, that's when you can have meaningful negotiations, right?
00:54:24.800 --> 00:54:29.599
Too often our diplomats, I would say in sub-Saharan Africa, prioritize access, right?
00:54:29.760 --> 00:54:33.679
They prioritize um this has certainly been the case in Rwanda.
00:54:33.760 --> 00:54:34.880
It's been the case in Ethiopia.
00:54:34.960 --> 00:54:56.639
We haven't really talked much about the case in DRC for uh in the DRC and the weakness of sanctions, the way we have used sanctions, or frankly, not used them at all with respect to Abi in Ethiopia is another case of real, the a real unwillingness to have our diplomats go in with strength, with leverage, know that there will be a response.
00:54:56.880 --> 00:55:01.840
These dictators will be very angry and they will find ways to make their lives mean, but that's the job.
00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:07.840
The job of a diplomat isn't to go and make nice, it is to do the hard work.
00:55:08.079 --> 00:55:25.840
So we think about, I mean, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Madagascar, so many places around the continent where we have objectives and we have been unwilling to really lean into targeted, very focused ways of imposing leverage to make our diplomacy better.
00:55:26.000 --> 00:55:38.559
Because our I would say our diplomacy in many of these cases has been weak because it has been basically essentially pretty pleased like please do what we want, and maybe we'll think about trying to get you some investment.
00:55:38.800 --> 00:55:40.000
But that's not enough.
00:55:40.239 --> 00:55:52.400
And I I would argue that our diplomacy would be better if we had a better, uh, a more strategic and forceful integration of um of sanctions.
00:55:52.559 --> 00:56:00.719
I mean, Trump, President Trump hasn't really used sanctions that much with respect to Sub-Saharan Africa, but he uses tariffs, and you know, tariffs are a different thing.
00:56:02.159 --> 00:56:04.639
It's a whole different subject, a different type of sanction.
00:56:04.960 --> 00:56:11.360
But it's gotten a lot of governments to pay attention and to and to uh and to think about what their relationships are.
00:56:11.519 --> 00:56:22.159
Now, again, like it's not clear to me that President Trump or the administration has a clear sense of we're gonna impose these sanctions because we want the or these tariffs because we want these things to happen.
00:56:22.239 --> 00:56:25.280
Sometimes it seems they're just doing it to do it, which that's not great.
00:56:25.519 --> 00:56:35.360
But proactive, I am a I am a believer in proactive, assertive foreign policy when you know your objective and your diplomacy won't get there without it.
00:56:35.440 --> 00:56:40.719
Um the problem is we don't really have always have that approach in sub-Saharan Africa.
00:56:40.800 --> 00:56:46.400
Um, and when we do, sometimes our diplomats and policymakers don't understand the tools well enough.
00:56:46.480 --> 00:56:54.559
So there's a lot more work to be done within the interagency and between the government and the private sector in terms of how to make these things effective.
00:56:54.639 --> 00:57:00.480
But you know, it's all around to me, sanctions, it's all about diplomacy, it's all about policy.
00:57:00.559 --> 00:57:06.480
You you can't really talk about it without a better a case for better making diplomacy better.
00:57:06.639 --> 00:57:12.800
But to me, diplomacy is better when you've got you've got an or else, you know, you've got a real consequence behind it.
00:57:13.519 --> 00:57:17.840
So it's about diplomacy, it's about political will, and it's about policy.
00:57:18.079 --> 00:57:20.079
And uh very clear goal.
00:57:20.639 --> 00:57:30.480
On this note, Brad Brooks Rubin, partner at Arcturus and non-resident senior associate at CSS.
00:57:31.199 --> 00:57:33.440
We'd like to thank you for joining us today.
00:57:33.519 --> 00:57:37.760
This has been a very insightful conversation, if I may so say so myself.
00:57:38.159 --> 00:57:40.400
It's been a huge pleasure for me and friend.
00:57:40.480 --> 00:57:45.360
It's been a pleasure to talk to uh to a friend about uh challenging and difficult issues.
00:57:45.440 --> 00:57:47.199
It's been it's an honor to be on this podcast.
00:57:47.280 --> 00:57:52.480
It's uh it's really a remarkable program you've launched, and uh I'm a I'm uh thrilled to have been a part of it.
00:57:52.800 --> 00:57:54.239
Thank you very much, Brad.
00:57:56.159 --> 00:57:57.840
Thank you for joining us.
00:57:58.079 --> 00:58:01.119
We would like to continue this important conversation.
00:58:01.519 --> 00:58:10.400
Please subscribe to the Africa Program Podcast, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you like to listen.
00:58:10.639 --> 00:58:18.159
Our analysis and reports are available online at www.dizzolele.com.
00:58:18.639 --> 00:58:23.599
That is d-zol e dot com.
00:58:24.000 --> 00:58:30.400
The Africa Program podcast is produced by Sarah Baker and Vember Peso Dizolele.
00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:32.400
Until next time.