Earlier this month, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) questioned a Department of the Treasury official on the increase of sanctions placed by the U.S. during a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 Thank you. Senator Warnock of Georgia is recognized.
00:02 Thank you, Chair Brown. The United States has become increasingly reliant
00:09 on sanctions as a foreign policy tool over the past 20 years. I remain concerned that
00:18 untargeted sanctions may only harm the poorest of the poor throughout the world. Oftentimes,
00:26 economic sanctions, as well-intentioned as they may be, are not felt by the governing class,
00:33 the people who are actually making the decisions. Instead, they're felt by the poor and the meek,
00:39 those with little say over the activities of those in power. They're literally caught in the crossfire.
00:47 There's an old African statement that when the elephants fight, the grass suffers.
00:55 Deputy Secretary Adeyemo, shortly after you took office in 2021, you led a broad review of the
01:01 sanctions administered and enforced by the Treasury Department. What were the review's
01:06 findings regarding how we can best ensure that our sanctions have the intended effect
01:12 and deter bad behavior? Senator, I appreciate you asking this question because I think it is
01:18 an issue that we don't speak enough about, which is that we need to make sure that our sanctions
01:23 are targeted towards the threat actors and that we do as much as possible to reduce the harm
01:29 against innocent individuals. That's why one of the findings of the sanctions review was the need
01:35 to have very clear humanitarian carve-outs for the vast majority of our sanctions programs.
01:42 In addition to that, we needed to make sure that these sanctions are tied to a clear foreign policy
01:47 objective and that, two, they are narrowly targeted in order to make sure that we have an impact on
01:53 the threat actor, but not on the overall population. I think the findings of that sanctions
01:58 review has influenced what we've done with regard to Russia and continues to influence the way we
02:03 think about using sanctions going forward. Thank you so much. It's so important that
02:09 the sanctions do what they're actually intended to do and that we don't create needless harm
02:16 on suffering and innocent people who are already marginalized. Speaking of humanitarian aid,
02:24 and you talked about these humanitarian carve-outs as part of your response, given the findings of
02:31 the study, as you know, Gaza is experiencing right now a humanitarian crisis of unspeakable,
02:37 at unspeakable levels. The trickle of aid entering Gaza is not nearly enough, not even close.
02:46 To meet the needs of the Palestinian people and the majority of Palestinians in Gaza are at severe
02:52 risk of famine. We must ensure that U.S. policy is not standing in the way of providing urgent
02:58 humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, particularly the children. And at the same time,
03:04 there is a real risk of terrorist groups like Hamas diverting aid for its own benefit. That's
03:10 why I was glad to see Treasury issue guidance on providing humanitarian assistance to the
03:15 Palestinian people without inadvertently financing Hamas very shortly after October 7.
03:21 Deputy Secretary Adeyemo, can you update us on the implementation of this guidance
03:29 regarding issuance of general licenses and regarding oversight?
03:34 So Senator, one of the early things we did after Hamas's brutal attack on Israel was take actions
03:40 to go after Hamas's finances. But we also sat down with financial institutions and humanitarian
03:46 groups to make sure that they had the ability to continue to provide legitimate aid and financial
03:52 assistance in Gaza. One of the things that we learned at that point was the challenge wasn't
03:58 U.S. sanctions given our humanitarian carve-out, but were the sanctions put in place by some of
04:02 our allies. Soon after, I traveled to Europe and with our European allies, worked with them to put
04:09 in place a similar humanitarian carve-out in their program in order to put us all in the same
04:14 position where we could both target actions to go after Hamas, but to ensure that legitimate
04:19 humanitarian assistance could flow through. My goal and my team's goal is to continue to meet
04:24 with financial institutions, but also with aid groups to ensure that our sanctions are in no way
04:30 prohibiting the legitimate flow of financial resources and other resources into Gaza. Because
04:35 to your point, I agree that not enough is being done, not enough is getting through, and we have
04:40 to do everything in our power to make sure that we change that dynamic. So what needs to happen
04:44 for the delivery of aid to be more effective? So Senator, this is not primarily in my domain.
04:52 The issues that are in my domain, though, are making sure that financial resources are able to
04:56 flow. And the goal there has to be the continued engagement, not only of the United States
05:01 government, but of the UK government, the EU government, the countries that are primarily
05:06 putting sanctions in place with our financial institutions and with our humanitarian groups,
05:11 to ensure that they are not in any way being blocked in the delivery of legitimate humanitarian
05:16 assistance. What I've heard from those groups to date is that the challenge they face is a fiscal
05:22 one in terms of being able to get aid in, not a financial one. But what I've also told them is
05:27 the moment they feel as if in some way they have a financial block, I want them to call me
05:32 immediately, because our goal is to make sure that our sanctions are targeted towards Hamas,
05:37 not towards impacting the innocent Palestinian people. I couldn't agree more. Thank you so very
05:43 much. We have to work to ensure that there's rigorous oversight of aid to Palestinians,
05:48 working also with our European and other allies to both ensure that it actually provides assistance
05:55 to those in need. And we want to certainly make sure that Hamas does not divert any sort of aid
06:01 for its own purposes. Thank you so very much, Mr. Secretary. Thanks, Senator Warnock. Senator
06:06 Brett of Alabama is recognized.