In recent decades, international trade has become more important than it ever was, e.g. global exports are now 40 times higher than they were in 1913. Globalisation has also increased foreign investment, creating more jobs and improving the quality of life, enabling more than 1 billion people worldwide to move out of their previous state of poverty. However, if economically globalisation has had a positive effect, at what level can it be affected by sanctions, despite many of them being a consequence of international policies? According to a study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, extensive sanctions reduce trade between countries by 91.9%, moderate ones by 31.2% and minor ones by 15-20%. For example, sanctions imposed on Iran rapidly reduced investment in the country; the IMF reports that sanctions led to a 40% drop in Iranian GDP between 2012 and 2015, a prime example of how the disruption of trade relations has the effect of slowing economic growth. However, some examples show that sanctions are not only beneficial for the countries against which they are imposed, but also for those that initiated them. For example, in 2015 Russia lost as much as USD 54 billion in exports due to sanctions imposed by the European Union, while the member countries themselves lost USD 42 billion due to the sanctions they imposed. It is important to remember that sanctions remain primarily political actions, not just economic ones.
