Secondary Sanctions

Secondary sanctions put pressure on third parties to stop their activities with the sanctioned country by threatening to cut-off the third party’s access to the sanctioning country. Recent US sanctions against Iran illustrate this example well. With the ultimate goal to stop Iran’s nuclear program, US secondary sanctions gave financial institutions around the world a choice to either halt transactions with Iranian banks or lose access to the US financial system. Combined with additional secondary sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector and broad multilateral support, these financial sanctions succeeded in bringing Iran to the negotiating table.

Source: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/ole-moehr-3/