The tolerance paradox of U.S. lobbying

Yesterday President Biden announced an expansion of U.S. sanctions against the Alexander Lukashenko regime. While this is a cause for celebration, the effect of the sanctions and, indeed, the ability of the U.S. government to effectively combat the regime are undermined by two seemingly unremarkable documents. 

What follows below is my understanding of the U.S. Department of Treasury regulations, which, since it is not my area of expertise, may be imprecise. I invite everyone to comment on or clarify it.

The regulations I have stumbled upon have been issued by the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and are designed to help protect two of Lukashenko's biggest assets: the KGB and JSC Belaruskali, the regime’s biggest source of hard currency.

The first document, issued in June, allows U.S. companies to sell software to the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus. The general license authorizes  “all transactions involving the Belarusian KGB, provided that such transactions are incident to ... requesting, receiving, utilizing, paying for or dealing in licenses, permits, certifications for the importation, distribution, or use of information technology products in Belarus.”

In other words, despite the sanctions, OFAC (effectively the U.S. government) allows the only remaining KGB in the world to purchase licensed software from American companies. The same KGB that is involved in Lukashenko’s policy of state terror, torturing of thousands, persecution of former presidential candidates, and recently—the effective hijacking of an international flight while in Belarus’ airspace.

The second license, adopted on the same day President Biden issued an executive order expanding the sanctions against Belarus, protects the financial interest of JSC Belaruskali—the world’s biggest producer of potash and a major source of income for the Lukashenko regime. The document, referencing Biden’s executive order directly, authorizes “all transactions and activities ... necessary to the wind down of transactions involving Belaruskali OAO, or any entity in which Belaruskali OAO owns, directly or indirectly, a 50 percent or greater interest.”

Wind down transactions refers to dissolving and liquidating the estates and distributing any remaining assets following the sale transaction. I realize I may be misreading this completely, but it appears that, as of today, and despite the sanctions, Belaruskali can finish extracting its assets and investments in the U.S. or other Belarusian entities that have been sanctioned in peace, thus minimizing the immediate economic damage. The capital of Belaruskali is used to pay for the loyalty of Lukashenko’s enforcers, the same people we saw a year ago beating up peaceful protesters on the streets, dragging them into police vans, assaulting them in detention centers, and, in several cases, killing them.

There is a lot I do not understand about the inner workings of the U.S. bureaucracy. Maybe, these licenses issued by OFAC are to accommodate certain technicalities in the implementation of the sanctions. Maybe the permission to trade with the KGB is some elaborate plan of U.S. intelligence to infiltrate the Committee with spyware. But I feel like the more realistic explanation is this: the Lukashenko regime has a very powerful, well-supplied, and professional lobbying force in Washington. Through his close associates and lobbying firms (like in the case of Peftiev and Steptoe & Johnson), the autocrat lobbies strategically to preserve the regime's key resources and financial interests. In this case, the lobbyists focused on the two very specific and very bureaucratic exceptions short enough that they are not even worth the public debate. This is especially true for the latest license since it comes in the shadow of the tremendous success of Tsikhanouskaya’s U.S. tour and her meeting with President Biden. The Belarusian democratic movement may have achieved a significant symbolic victory last month, but these finds make me wonder whether Lukashenko, given the circumstances, is the one who got the most out of the situation. The United States government supports the democratic movement in Belarus and allows business with its KGB at the same time.

I feel like recalling Karl Popper’s paradox of tolerance seems fitting here. The Austrian philosopher argued that a fully tolerant society is eventually taken over by the intolerant. To survive, it needs to be intolerant of intolerance. U.S. public policy is sincerely trying to be compliant with this maxim. U.S. politics, on the other hand, appears to be fully tolerant of any cause or interest, no matter how corrupt or repressive. Despite the American ideals and the pledge to defend democracy across the world, someone in Washington protects the repression instruments of Lukashenko, a person who stands against everything this country holds dear.