It is well known that the U.S. government has used tariffs to protect industries in politically important states and Congressional districts from foreign competition. This paper will examine whether economic sanctions imposed by the United States for ostensibly foreign policy reasons, such as responding to military aggression or to improve human rights, are, in fact, non-tariff barriers in disguise. (Sanctions imposed over trade disputes are excluded from the analysis.)
If protectionism does drive sanctions, then the previous research on the effectiveness of economic sanctions may suffer from selection bias. The bias may be particularly severe if sanctions are imposed as a non-tariff barrier because i) such sanctions are not designed to alter the target's behavior and ii) the target may realize that the sender's demands are merely a pretext, so it will have no incentive to comply with them.
