Uncle Sam’s Blacklist: Who’s Next?
The United States, playing global sheriff with the swagger of a Wild West gunslinger, has been firing sanctions like bullets from a six-shooter, with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes as its latest target, blacklisted on July 18, 2025, for allegedly gagging free speech, including that of Americans. “Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes’s political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro created a persecution and censorship complex so sweeping that it not only violates basic rights of Brazilians, but also extends beyond Brazil’s shores to target Americans. I have therefore ordered visa revocations for Moraes and his allies on the court, as well as their immediate family members, effective immediately,” Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio delivered a self-righteous edict.
These sanctions are still locked and loaded. But Moraes is just one name in a sprawling wanted poster that ropes in judges, diplomats, and state leaders, each branded for crossing Washington’s invisible line.
Such moves are less “champion of justice” and more “schoolyard bully with a blacklist”. Uncle Sam has been doling out these sanctions like candy at a parade, targeting international figures who dare to challenge its self-annointed moral high ground. First, in February 2025, the Trump administration, via Executive Order 14203, slapped sanctions on International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan for his audacity in pursuing justice against U.S. and Israeli nationals. Then, on June 5, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio turned the screws tighter, sanctioning four ICC judges—Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda), Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru), Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou (Benin), and Beti Hohler (Slovenia)—for their roles in authorizing investigations into U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Their sanctions still sting. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca P. Albanese got the same treatment on July 10, 2025, for her Gaza reports and ICC support, with penalties ongoing. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova was tagged on April 6, 2022, for Kremlin propaganda, her sanctions still active! These folks are targeted for wielding gavels or pens that poke at US interests, slapped with vague charges like “undermining democratic processes” to keep them grounded.
Not content with meddling in The Hague, Moscow, and Geneva, the U.S. pivoted to Brasilia on July 9, 2025, barring Supreme Court Justice Moraes and his family from U.S. soil, accusing him of orchestrating a “censorship complex” targeting free speech.
This follows a pattern of Washington’s sanctimonious finger-wagging, cloaked in the rhetoric of defending democracy, while conveniently ignoring its own domestic circus, where elections and judicial independence increasingly resemble a reality TV farce.
Uncle Sam’s sanctimonious “crusade” paints itself as the global arbiter of justice, yet it insults respected figures like Khan and Moraes, whose only crime is doing their jobs. The hypocrisy is glaring: the U.S. champions a “rules-based order” while punishing those who uphold it, all to shield allies like Israel and dodge accountability for its own actions. This isn’t justice—it’s power projection dressed up as morality, and the world’s getting tired of the act.
The US casts its net wide, snaring foes while shielding allies, revealing a hypocrisy so brazen it could star in its own Hollywood blockbuster. In retaliation, multiple countries have imposed economic sanctions on the United States of America, but do they matter?
Even the heavyweights—state leaders have drawn Washington’s ire for geopolitical “high crimes”. Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Foreign Minister Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov were gunned down with sanctions not just by the U.S. but also by its allies, the European Union, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, New Zealand and Australia on February 25, 2022, for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, still in effect. Myanmar’s military junta boss, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, was roped in on February 10, 2021, for the coup, with sanctions holding firm. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, has been in the crosshairs since June 24, 2019, for human rights abuses and terrorism support. He is not directly named in sanctions, but the U.S. government has imposed sanctions on entities and individuals associated with him or his office. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moros was branded on August 5, 2017, for gutting democracy, and the US announced an increased $25m (£20.4m) reward for information leading to his arrest on the day he was sworn in for a third six-year term in office in January 2025. Chinese official Chen Quanguo was targeted on July 9, 2020, for Uyghur abuses. These leaders are hunted for shaking the global order, their regimes squeezed to isolate them economically and diplomatically.
The US sanctions saloon has been open since 2014, firing off over 2,000 designations, with volleys peaking during Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion and Iran’s 2024-2025 nuclear showdowns. The Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and State Department, armed with Executive Orders like 13660 for Ukraine or 13846 for Iran, pick targets using pretexts like “threatening national security” or “undermining democratic processes.”
At present, President Donald John Trump, with Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio as his deputy, calls the shots, often sidestepping Congress, as seen on July 19, 2025, about tariff threats to corral Russia into a Ukraine ceasefire. The State Department proclaimed on July 18, 2025, “President Trump made clear that his administration will hold accountable foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States.” It’s political poker, not evidence-driven justice, letting the US hammer adversaries.
Indian businesses, already dodging H-1B visa hurdles, are now ducking scrutiny over Russian oil trades, switching to Chinese yuan to slip past US traps. Brazilian firms, battered by Trump’s threatened 50% tariffs, and European banks, spooked by dollar dominance, are caught in the crossfire as global trade stumbles. The US waves democracy’s flag, but its sanctions spit in the face of figures like Alexandre de Moraes and Karim Asad Ahmad Khan, undermining global institutions while its own judicial credibility wobbles like a house of cards. This isn’t a quest for justice—it’s a power grab that risks turning allies like India into wary bystanders and the global economy into a geopolitical shooting range.
