John Kerry: “I agree with those of my colleagues who have argued that we have too many unilateral sanctions in place, many of them…”

“I agree with those of my colleagues who have argued that we have too many unilateral sanctions in place, many of them mandated by Congress, and that often these sanctions fail to achieve the stated foreign policy objectives while hurting American business and competitiveness. I support the overall objective of the amendment offered by the Senator from Indiana--to provide a rational framework for the imposition of sanctions by both the Congress and the President. However, some aspects of this legislation concern me, in particular the broad definition of the term ``unilateral economic sanction'' and the extensive process which is to be exhausted before sanctions are imposed. I have always believed that sanctions are most effective when they are multilateral not unilateral, but I also recognize that there may be circumstances in which we need the option of imposing sanctions unilaterally, for example to send a message of disapproval of a given regime as we did with respect to the military junta in Burma, or to respond to a horrific event such as the use of force against those protesting for democracy in Tiananmen Square in 1989.”