Abstract: The research purpose of this article is to attempt to differentiate the concepts and theoretical backgrounds of economic sanctions and trade wars as popular instruments of economic coercion. In the authors’ opinion, such differentiation is critically important for the conceptualization of economic sanctions as a foreign policy instrument kindling the interest of both specialists in international relations and the global and regional international politics practitioners. From a practical perspective, the interest in analyzing this issue is determined by the fact that over the past century, economic sanctions have become one of the key instruments of achieving a state’s foreign policy goals. They are mostly used by developed countries with extensive economic and technological capabilities (e.g. U.S.), which are striving for abatements of their less powerful partners regarding foreign and domestic policy issues. Yet another argument in favour of studying economic sanctions, trade wars and other instruments of economic coercion in the context of the theory of international relations is the possibility to shed more light on the nature of power as the most significant concept of modern political science. A detailed analysis of theoretical discussions about the phenomenon of trade and economic wars compared with economic sanctions allows the authors to outline a set of fundamental differences between these phenomena in the context of modern economic diplomacy.