Well, howdy there, internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about Trump's sanctioning countries and why understanding

sanctions really, really matters to you right now.

Trump said there were no plans to impose new sanctions on Russia.

And it's probably a good time to explain what sanctions are, what they do, and how they work.

In common language, when people say sanctions, they mean economic sanctions.

There are other kinds.

But right now, we're going to talk about economic sanctions, because they're the

most common and they're what was being discussed with Russia. So, what's the goal of a sanction?

The goal is to give world policymakers another tool above a strongly worded letter and below war.

How do sanctions work? The goal of most is to disrupt the target nation's economy and get them to change their behavior. It's not to

cut off their economy. That's an embargo. It's to disrupt it. Economic sanctions restrict trade, but some countries don't apply the sanctions, and there's

always ways around the sanctions so it doesn't totally eliminate trade.

They basically just make it more expensive for the target country to conduct business.

What kind of tools are common economic sanctions?

Limitations on imports and exports is the most common. Another is to limit the government's

access or specific parts of the government's access to funds that exist in banks. Then there's travel bans that limit the amount

of external currency flowing into the country. Those are the most common types of economic sanctions,

and the goal is to harm the target nation's economy. Now, I'm sure some of you notice the patch and are wondering what the

switchup is. Out of the common economic sanctions, name one Trump isn't already imposing on the

United States. Sure, they're called something else, but they accomplish the same thing.

The export import restrictions are designed to raise prices to make it more expensive to conduct

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