U.S. misses the mark with Nicaragua sugar sanctions

The so-called “backyard diplomacy” of the U.S. in Latin America is notorious and widely criticized. Governments in the region that displease Washington are historically hit with robust economic sanctions that — while causing turmoil — do not hit their intended target.

The leading example, of course, is Cuba, one of the few countries that sought to challenge U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Soon after the Castro-led Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s, Washington hit the island nation with a massive trade embargo that still exists today. The UN estimated in 2018 that the blockade cost Cuba some USD 130 billion — yet the Communist Party remains in power.

Similar stories are repeated throughout the years, at varying degrees of severity. Among the most recent cases concerns Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega was controversially elected to a fourth term in office last year — much to the chagrin of the U.S. Washington’s response consisted of excluding Nicaragua from an additional 2022 sugar quota, causing shockwaves to a sector that made up less than 2 percent of all the country’s exports to the U.S. last year.

And much like the Cuba embargo, this sugar sanction falls short when it comes to practical outcomes. In essence, allocating Nicaraguan sugar quotas to other countries seeks to turn up the heat on Mr. Ortega — Washington does not recognize the legitimacy of...