Welcome back to the podcast, Brib, Swindle, or Steel. I'm Alexandra Rogge. We are kicking off

2021 with some informed predictions. My guest is Tom Best. Tom is a partner in Paul Hastings

Investigations and White Collar Defense Practice, and he's going to talk us through what we can

expect from the Biden administration with respect to the use of sanctions as a foreign policy tool

in the year ahead. Tom, thank you for joining me and happy new year.

Happy new year, Alexandra, thank you very much for having me.

Why do you start by setting the scene for us, perhaps an overview of what

we saw out of the Trump administration and the use of sanctions looking back briefly for the last

four years? Like most things with the Trump administration or many things, they've taken a very

different approach to administrations past and

really exercised the U.S. sanctions authority, and I'll lump sanctions and export controls herein

because those two areas are fused for U.S. foreign policy purposes. They've taken a much more

unilateral and one might say blunt approach or at least a more

aggressive approach with respect to a number of the different sanctions regimes, countries,

and really foreign policy questions out the U.S. has faced in the last four years than,

say, the Obama administration or even the Bush and other administrations before that.

You know, one of the most interesting things that we're going to see, I think, with respect to the

Biden administration, is that while the Trump administration did it their way and took us to

places policy-wise that we would not have expected any U.S. administration to go before the Trump

administration, it's going to take a while in each of these different areas for... that we would not have expected any U.S. administration to go before the Trump administration.

It's going to take a while in each of these different areas for a Biden administration to change.

And indeed, there may not be as much change, at least in the short term, as we think there's going to be.

...