The Most Sanctioned Countries of All Time

The number of sanctions against Venezuela escalated after Nicolás Maduro won a second presidential term in a contested election in 2018. The election was considered fraudulent by Venezuelan opposition leaders, the United States, and independent observers. Amnesty International considers this South American country of 29 million people to be in an economic crisis under a policy of repression by the Maduro government. The U.S., Canada, and the European Union have sanctions against Venezuela.

The February 2021 Myanmar coup d’état led to a raft of sanctions against the military junta and its web of enterprises. But this Southeast Asian country of 55 million people has been a sanctions target over its human rights record dating back to the 1990s, when Australia imposed an arms embargo, trade restrictions, travel bans, and asset freezes of individuals and entities. European Union sanctions date back to 2008. The United States has imposed sanctions against Myanmar since 2003.

Belarus has been supporting Russia’s aggressions against Ukraine, leading to an escalation of sanctions against this county of 9 million people whose capital of Minsk is 440 miles from Moscow. Since Russia began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, Western allies, including Japan, have imposed hundreds of sanctions targeting Belarussian entities and individuals.

The U.S. has imposed sanctions on the Hermit Kingdom since the Korean War, imposing broad bans against trade and investment, targeting entities and individuals, for a series of offenses, including its nuclear program, human rights abuses, cybercrimes, and money laundering. The U.N. Security Council has its own series of resolutions against North Korea for its ongoing nuclear weapons program.

Though the U.S. has imposed sanctions on Syria since the 1970s, the most recent series of sanctions came in two waves: in the 2000s against the country’s support for Lebanon’s Shia Islamist political organization and militant group Hezbollah, and in 2011, after the start of Syria’s civil war. The European Union joined the U.S. in imposing sanctions in 2011, and the EU has its own smaller set of sanctions targeting Islamic State group activities in the country. The U.K. has had autonomous sanctions since its secession from the EU in 2020.

Like North Korea, much of the focus of Western sanctions has been related to Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons. But sanctions have also been the result of the Iranian government’s support of Shia militant groups in the region and domestic involvement in human rights abuses, most recently against feminist activists. The U.S. has maintained sanctions since the 1979 Iranian revolution that swept out a pro-Western authoritarian monarchy and replaced it with an authoritarian Islamic republic under a supreme leader.

Sanctions against Russia have been building since Moscow’s decision to annex Crimea in 2014, but the number of sanctions against Russian entities and individuals has grown nearly 280% since Russia escalated its conflict with Ukraine into a full-blown invasion. Most of these sanctions have been imposed by the United States, Canada, the U.K., Switzerland, the European Union, France, Australia, and Japan.