Most Americans Support Sanctions Relief

There is growing public support for sanctions relief when sanctions have adverse effects on the populations of targeted states.

Connor Echols calls attention to an interesting new Harris Poll with some important findings about Americans’ foreign policy views:

A large majority of Americans support talks aimed at reducing tensions with North Korea and China, according to a survey released Friday by The Harris Poll.

Majority support for diplomatic engagement with these states is encouraging, but the most interesting findings in the poll were on Americans’ views of sanctions. When there are polls of the public’s foreign policy views, they often find broad support for the use of sanctions, but there is often not much follow-up to find out how strong that support is. Coming at the issue from a different direction, this poll asked respondents about their support for sanctions relief under certain circumstances. The findings were good news for critics of broad sanctions: