The Russian response to US/EU sanctions

realitykeeper

Russia`s counter sanctions against the EU include a boycott of food products. Consequently, the EU will have to subsidize farmers for their losses and the taxpayer will have to pay for the subsidy. The loss of the Russian market will also cost millions of jobs across the EU.

Meanwhile, Russia has found a new supplier of food, namely Argentina. With this new revenue stream, Argentina can now afford to default on their unjust legacy debt, poetic justice after a US District judge tried to force Argentina to pay the bond holders in full. A double whammy in Russia`s favour.

Regarding the other Russian counter sanction: refusing US/EU airlines permission to fly over Russia to the far east. This will cost western airlines billions of euro every year. Asian airlines will not be effected so they (along with Aeroflot) will have a monopoly of the skies over Russia. EU/US airlines will not be able to compete with them so in future all flights to the far east will be via Asian airlines. Putin will get a few brownie points from his Asian neighbours for that.

Regarding the US/EU sanctions to prevent the export of high tech equipment to Russia: These were intended to make it difficult for Russia to modernize its oil/gas industries. The problem with this is that the EU buys Russian oil and gas so if the Russian operations are inefficient, the EU buyer ultimately pays more. Also, by not selling modern equipment for the gas/oil industries, Russian will look to the next best supplier, i.e. China. Another own goal for the EU and the US.

From a free trade point of view, there seems to be something fundamentally dictatorial and unjust in western governments telling private companies they cannot sell to Russia, - and it will impact negatively on the overall trade balance for the US and the EU. If anything the sanctions will have a neutral or perhaps even a positive affect on the Russian trade balance because they only affect Russia`s ability to import and not their ability to export.

Finally, the people of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine do not want to be part of Ukraine. Why cant the west just respect the wishes of these people like they respect the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland?

Hawkeye123

realitykeeper wrote: »

Russia`s counter sanctions on the EU include a boycott of food products. Consequently, the EU will have to subsidize farmers for their losses and the taxpayer will have to pay for the subsidy. The loss of the Russian market will cost hundreds of thousands of jobs across the EU.

Meanwhile, Russia has found a new supplier of food, namely Argentina. With this new revenue stream, Argentina can now afford to default on their unjust legacy debt. Poetic justice after a US District judge tried to force Argentina pay the debt in full. A double whammy in Russia`s favour.

Regarding the other Russian counter sanction: refusing US/EU airlines permission to fly over Russia to the far east. This will cost western airlines billions of euro every year. Asian airlines will not be effected so they (along with Aeroflot) will have a monopoly of the skies over Russia. EU/US airlines will not be able to compete with them so in future all flights to the far east will be via Asian airlines. Putin will get a few brownie points from his Asian neighbours for that.

Regarding the US/EU sanctions to prevent the export of high tech equipment to Russia: These were intended to make it difficult for Russia to modernize its oil/gas industries. The problem with this is that the EU buys Russian oil and gas so if the Russian operations are inefficient, the EU buyer ultimately pays more. Also, by not selling modern equipment for the gas/oil industries, Russian will look to the next best supplier, i.e. China. Another own goal for the EU and the US.

From a free trade point of view, there seems to be something fundamentally dictatorial and unjust in western governments telling private companies they cannot sell to Russia, - and it will impact negatively on the overall trade balance for the US and the EU. If anything the sanctions will have a neutral or perhaps even a positive affect on the Russian trade balance because they only affect Russia`s ability to import and not their ability to export.

Finally, the people of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine do not want to be part of Ukraine. Why cant the west just respect the wishes of these people like they respect the wishes of the people of Northern Ireland?

So I guess the US and EU are the losers. I hear Richard Branson and some other billionaires are going to try to mediate in the dispute over eastern Ukraine. Fair play to them. Perhaps they will be more diplomatic than the politicians have been.

Its hard to see anything good come out of these sanctions from an EU/US perspective.

realitykeeper

Hawkeye123 wrote: »

Perhaps they will be more diplomatic than the politicians have been.

That would not be difficult. The American`s presented the Russians with a reset button intended to symbolize a fresh start in Russian/US relations. The button looked like the sort of thing that worried millions during the cold war. Perhaps it will again.

The Corinthian

The West kind of shot ourselves in our collective feet over Kosovo. We set a precedent that a region could unilaterally declare independence and choose it's own destiny away from it's original national union. That is the precedent we then saw come back to haunt us in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and now in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

Wait till ethnic Russians in the Baltic EU states start to declare independence... that'll be fun...

comongethappy

The Corinthian wrote: »

The West kind of shot ourselves in our collective feet over Kosovo. We set a precedent that a region could unilaterally declare independence and choose it's own destiny away from it's original national union. That is the precedent we then saw come back to haunt us in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and now in Crimea and Eastern Ukraine.

Wait till ethnic Russians in the Baltic EU states start to declare independence... that'll be fun...

What about Slovenia/Croatia?

How are they different from Kosovo?

The Corinthian

comongethappy wrote: »

What about Slovenia/Croatia?

How are they different from Kosovo?

It's a fair point, in many respects their unilateral declarations of independence should be no different to Kosovo's or Abkhazia's or Crimea's. Or any of the former Soviet states.

There are a few differences though:

• Slovenia and Croatia were federal constituents of Yugoslavia, already technically separate states and fell under a different legal framework from Kosovo which was not and was essentially only a province in the Yugoslav federal state of Serbia.
• The West never got militarily involved in the independence of either Slovenia or Croatia. In fact, the West didn't recognize either until they had successfully defended that independence. Kosovo was only able to become independent because it was propped up, and still is, by the West.
• Serbian-Yugoslav opposition to Slovenian and Croatian independence was very limited and their independence was recognized relatively quickly by them.
• The background of Slovenian and Croatian independence was was the disintegration of Yugoslavia - it was falling apart anyway. Same with the Soviet Union. With Kosovo, there was no 'disintegration' of the state of Serbia.

Politically, the principle difference was probably that the West recognized a fait accompli with Slovenia and Croatia, while Kosovo was anything but - we enabled it. Given this, I recognize that it's a bit of a grey area. Problem is that with Kosovo, it created a precedent for the use of military intervention to enable the independence of parts of countries, that the Russians have been more than happy to exploit on three subsequent occasions.