Press Releases

Today, the House Financial Services Committee is holding a National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions Subcommittee hearing, led by Subcommittee Chairman Warren Davidson (OH-08), to evaluate the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions programs.

Read Subcommittee Chairman Davidson's opening remarks as prepared for delivery:

"I welcome our distinguished witness, the Honorable Jonathan Burke, Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

"Today’s hearing provides the Subcommittee an opportunity to review the United States’ sanctions programs and the process for making sanctions policy and designations.

"Ensuring that our sanctions are effective, targeted, and strategic is vital to achieving our national security objectives. This discussion is especially timely as we work to further isolate Iran and prevent it from funding its nuclear program, ballistic missile development, and regional proxies.

"As we have become more comfortable with sanctions over the past few decades, they have become a go-to tool to advance our national security objectives with designations on topics as varied as counterterrorism, anticorruption, human rights, fraud, organized crime, and counternarcotics.

"Sanctions are also a centerpiece of our response to bad actors like Iran, Russia, and North Korea. In fact, as of 2024, the United States had sanctioned targets in around a third of the world’s countries.

"Yet, all too often it seems that sanctions are used too readily, without a coherent strategy, a clear theory of success, or metrics for their ultimate effectiveness.

"Furthermore, the use of sanctions is not without costs. They predictably cause hedging behavior, whether it’s China and Russia conducting trade outside the dollar system or Europe developing the digital Euro in part with the desire to evade U.S. sanctions. Also, without a clear connection to overall U.S. foreign policy, we cannot accurately signal when we might use sanctions, eroding our credibility and weakening deterrence.

"Recently, the Robert M. Gates Global Policy Center released a noteworthy report summarizing several key shortcomings in our approach to sanctions such as a lack of coherent and achievable goals, a failure to adequately communicate with the private sector, and the need for a single entity within government to communicate sanctions policy.

"Many of these concerns are well-known and longstanding. Some have even been acknowledged by Treasury, including the need for a more robust internal policy process to ensure sanctions are strategic. Frustratingly, despite this widespread recognition, little has been done.

"So, I hope this hearing will give us an opportunity to evaluate how we might fix these problems to ensure the long-term viability of our sanctions toolkit.

"Finally, Assistant Secretary Burke, given your role at TFI, I would also like to touch on FinCEN. SAR and CTR thresholds have not been updated since the 1970s, yet Treasury’s latest BSA rule fails to change them.

"Furthermore, a year ago, the Administration took the welcome step to scope the Corporate Transparency Act to foreign companies, yet despite assurances, Treasury still has not deleted the beneficial ownership information of millions of Americans.

"I hope we can get some clarity on the timeline for when we can expect action on these two fronts."

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