Secondary sanctions
Topic: International Trade Policy, WTO and Intellectual Property · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Secondary sanctions are sanctions on firms, banks or individuals in a third country because they deal with a sanctioned state. Primary sanctions stop the sanctioning country's own firms from trading with the target. Secondary sanctions reach further. They make firms elsewhere choose between the target's market and the sanctioning country's market and financial system. This lets one powerful country, usually the US, cut off the target's trade around the world.
Example
In October 2025 the US put sanctions on the Russian oil firms Rosneft and Lukoil. This created a risk for Indian refiners that were buying Russian crude, because they could lose access to US finance even though India itself had not sanctioned Russia.
Don't confuse with
- UNSC sanctions: these bind all UN members under international law. Secondary sanctions are unilateral: one country applies them to foreign firms under its own law.
Related concepts
- Weaponisation of trade
- Economic coercion
- Economic sanctions
- Export controls
- Dual-use goods
- Technology denial
- Security exception
- Trade war
- Retaliatory tariff
- Reciprocal tariff