The Little Sanctions Office That Could

02/08/24 • 15 min

America’s use of sanctions has grown by almost 1,000% since 9/11. So why isn’t Congress giving the office in charge of them more resources?
Today on the Big Take DC podcast, host Saleha Mohsin talks to John Smith, a former director of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, and Bloomberg National Security editor Nick Wadhams about OFAC’s scrappy operation and why lawmakers aren’t giving it more to work with.

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Big Take DC - The Little Sanctions Office That Could

Transcript

Speaker 100:00:01.399

About two hundred yards from the White House, there's a nondescript government building. Inside is a tiny agency that happens to be one of the most powerful in the world.

Speaker 200:00:11.519

It's been called the most important agency that no one has ever heard of.

Speaker 100:00:15.919

It's called OPHAK, the Office of Foreign Assets Control. It also goes by another name, the Sancti