the.com/embargo
a nation's silent treatment, weaponized into trade routes and starving harbors.
means An official ban on commerce or movement — typically a government's order halting trade with a particular country or stopping ships from leaving port.
from From Spanish embargo, 'seizure, arrest, prohibition,' from the verb embargar, 'to impede, restrain, seize.' This traces back to a Vulgar Latin reconstruction *imbarricare, built from in- ('in') plus the root behind barra ('bar, barrier') — the same family that gives us 'barricade' and 'barrier.' So an embargo is, at root, the act of barring something: a gate thrown across the harbor mouth. English took the word from Spanish around the early 17th century, fittingly an age of seafaring empires squabbling over who could sail where.
- origin
- From Spanish embargar, to seize or impede.
- cuba
- US embargo has run since 1962, unbroken.
- news trick
- Journalists embargo stories until an agreed release time.
- oil shock
- 1973 Arab embargo quadrupled oil prices worldwide.
- backfire
- Often hurts civilians more than targeted regimes.
cuban embargo — us trade embargo against cuba since 1962, longest embargo in modern history
opec oil embargo 1973 — arab opec members cut oil exports to us and allies over yom kippur war
iran sanctions — us comprehensive economic embargo on iran since 1995, intensified after 2018 nuclear deal withdrawal