The concept of US sanctions is a foreign policy scheme involving financial and trade restrictions imposed by the United States government against individuals, entities, and jurisdictions whose actions contradict U.S. national security or foreign policy goals. The origin of modern US sanctions authority can be traced to the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA) of 1917, which granted the President broad powers to regulate commerce during wartime. Following World War I, President Woodrow Wilson promoted sanctions as a method for the League of Nations to enforce peace, offering a peaceful alternative to military force.
The primary mechanism for imposing sanctions today is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977, which grants the President authority to impose sanctions during a declared national emergency in response to an "unusual or extraordinary threat". Sanctions are primarily administered and enforced by the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which issues regulations and maintains a list of sanctioned parties. Sanctions are categorized as comprehensive, which restrict nearly all trade and financial transactions with a country like Iran or North Korea, or targeted, which focus on specific individuals or entities. A key provision is the use of secondary sanctions, which threaten penalties against a non-U.S. person for transacting with sanctioned parties, even without a direct U.S. nexus.
The US sanctions regime connects to other legislation like the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) of 2017, which tightened sanctions against Iran, North Korea, and Russia. Recent changes include the expansion of sanctions against Russia following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the signing of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 (H.R. 5334) on September 18, 2026, which authorized tariffs on Russian oil and gas buyers. While the framework of IEEPA remains, the scope and frequency of sanctions have significantly expanded, with the number of sanctions increasing over nine-fold between 2000 and 2021.