Recently, the United States issued a broad set of prohibitions on exports to China of semiconductor chips and other high-technology equipment due to concern of the idea that China is hoping to dominate the global supply chain, and use civilian companies to directly increase Chinese military capabilities. However, the imposition of economic sanctions was bound to inflict mutual harm from disrupted economic exchanges. Then, why did they deploy these coercive economic measures? In this short article, I explain economic sanctions through the lens of game theory.