Why Sanctions Against the Taliban Aren’t Working

Last month, several Republican senators introduced a bill to impose tougher sanctions on the Taliban. The Taliban Sanctions Act, introduced by Sen. Jim Risch, requires U.S. President Joe Biden to sanction the Taliban for their terrorist activities, drug trafficking, and human rights abuses. Although the bill correctly highlights the Taliban’s undeniable human rights violations, it is utterly misguided. Economic sanctions will only harm the people of Afghanistan, not the Taliban; instead of introducing new sanctions, existing ones should be lifted immediately.

Growing up under the Taliban’s rule as a child, I experienced firsthand the colossal negative impact of the economic sanctions and isolation on our lives. As a 5-year-old, I wondered if my parents would have to make the painful decision of selling one of us for the rest of us to survive.

Ultimately, my family joined the millions of displaced Afghans who left their homes in search of a better life. We drove, walked, and rode on donkeys to get to a border in search of food and safety. Night after night, I would go to bed hungry, waiting for a miracle that would end my suffering. But that miracle never came, only war did.

Having survived, and studied, both war and poverty, I cannot think of a more damaging policy for Afghan people than economic sanctions against the Taliban.

For example, 70 years of sanctions against Cuba have had devastating effects on the lives of innocent Cubans. While sanctions have crippled the Cuban economy and even halted lifesaving medical aid to the people of Cuba (including during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic), regime change—the initial goal of the U.S. sanctions—has yet to be achieved. Meanwhile, sanctions against North Korea have led the country to increase trade with China, rather than force the country to abide by Washington’s demands.

Sanctions against the Taliban are no different. When the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban for the first time in 1999, the sanctions and resulting isolation emboldened the Taliban to work more closely with al Qaeda. Oftentimes, as is the case in Afghanistan, sanctions are easy to sidestep and are particularly ineffective for the following reasons.

The Taliban’s purpose has not been to prosper economically nor to deliver to its people; totalitarian governments have little incentive to do so.

First, sanctions do not work for the Taliban because there is a dearth of democratic accountability in Afghanistan. The totalitarian emirate not only occupies and runs the country’s public sector, which overshadows the crippled private sector, but it also vehemently rejects dissent. The Taliban’s purpose has not been to prosper economically nor to deliver to its people; totalitarian governments have little incentive to do so. Their priority has historically been to rule its people by force.

Under the Taliban, policies in Afghanistan are made based on what a handful of powerful Taliban leaders think Islam prescribes, however erroneous those interpretations may be. Far from being accountable to the country’s people, the group thrives on autocracy—and economic sanctions provide little incentive to change that.

Second, although these sanctions are directed only at the Taliban, in practice they have contributed to significant confusion and over-compliance from international financial institutions, both of which have harmed the growth of the private sector. Although the Afghan private sector is not associated with the Taliban, it goes through an arduous and unnecessary process in order to seek funds, often relying on foreign banks or the hawala system. A year after the Taliban took over Kabul, the cost of transferring funds through the hawala system soared from around 2 percent to a whopping 13 percent—creating a cash crunch and further halting economic activity.

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Since the U.S. withdrawal in August 2021, the Afghan economy has nosedived, with nearly 20 million Afghans experiencing food insecurity. Prior attempts to exempt the humanitarian aid from the imposed sanctions have done little to address the economic crisis in Afghanistan—with women and girls being hit the hardest. According to a 2022 Human Rights Watch report, “nearly 100 percent of female-headed households [were] facing insufficient food consumption and 85 percent [were] taking ‘drastic measures’ to obtain food.”

Economic sanctions against the Taliban, in reality, function as economic sanctions against the people of Afghanistan.

Unsurprisingly, the Taliban use corruption and intimidation to divert aid and food supplies from the deserving people of Afghanistan to their own members and supporters. Sanctions in this way fail to put pressure on the Taliban both globally and domestically. Economic sanctions against the Taliban, in reality, function as economic sanctions against the people of Afghanistan.

Third, sanctions against the Taliban lessen U.S. influence while failing to weaken the Taliban. Sanctions push the Taliban to look for gray and black markets—ones they can find in neighboring countries like China, Russia, and India, which have little interest in complying with U.S. sanctions. Only a year after taking power, the Taliban entered an agreement with Russia—also heavily sanctioned by the United States—to import Russian petroleum products and wheat to Afghanistan.

Similarly, the Taliban signed their first major international energy deal with a Chinese company earlier this year, allowing the company to extract oil from the country’s north for an initial amount of $150 million a year that would increase to $540 million over the course of three years. These deals signal that the Taliban have access to alternative markets outside of the West, no matter how uncertain their potential may be.

My own relatives who still live in Afghanistan tell me that for the past two years, they’ve looked down while walking outside in order to avoid eye contact with other friends and relatives who might be too embarrassed to be seen begging for food. Many of these individuals held jobs and ran small businesses not long ago, but poverty has stripped them of the sense of security and dignity they felt before the Taliban took over.

Undoubtedly, sanctions have contributed to the suffering of the Afghan people. Instead of preventing more harm, sanctions often embolden oppressive governments and give them license to break more rules, collude with fellow anti-democratic regimes, and sponsor terrorist acts. From 9/11 to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine, there are countless examples of failed sanctions; and sadly, many more examples of children like me who grew up feeling a visceral pain due to chronic malnutrition and poverty.

Instead of imposing sanctions, Western powers must lift them and support the people of Afghanistan during this historic and dire economic crisis.