Thread: Sanctions on Russia: Facts and end-resultsd

Should be interesting the day China imposes sanctions on the USA.
For war crimes in the Middle East, or whatever.

Or Russia on the EU (although that could be rather cold in the winter... so only after I am in a house with solar panels... )
The same EU countries that are bashing Russia right now, import most of their gas and oil from Russia.

Personally I think sanctions are ridiculous, but could be interesting to see it applied to the USA and after the US has destroyed economies around the world it seems that nothing apart from a taste of its own medicine would make the US change its ways. The US manufactures hardly no major industrial products, apart from weapons. 5 years without any computer parts from China, lol....

Originally Posted by Hanna

The US manufactures hardly no major industrial products, apart from weapons.....

that is factually wrong; a few products that come to mind
aircraft (eg Boeing)
tractors and agricultural machinery (eg John Deere)
gas turbines
automotive and automotive suppliers (gm, ford, chrysler - even the europeans and japanese manufacture in the US (bmw, merc, vw, bosch, zf, siemens, toyota)
medical equipment
pharmaceuticals
etc

while manufacturing did in certain sectors decline over time, i do think the USA is still the single biggest manufacturer

in my opinion China is very unlikely to ever impose sanctions on any big trading partner as China's economy is particularly geared around exports (hence the artificially pegged weak Yuan / Renminbi) - plus they are a huge importer of natural resources (eg iron ore, coal) - they would hurt themselves the most.

I believe that serious US/Euro sanctions on Russia actually have a more severe and longer term impact on Russia's economy than Russia would admit to. Please note that I am not commenting on the fairness of sanctions or lack thereof, merely on their effect. And I am not talking about restricting travel to Putin's inner circle, but level 3 or higher level of genuine economic sanctions. I believe this genuinely worries Russia's leaders, particlar with regards to longer term economic growth and development. If implemented, such sanctions would eventually affect ordinary people, though emotions of patriotism would for some time cloud the consequences. Such sanctions would hurt some European countries too; especially those that would have high level export opportunities with a growing Russian economy. In particular this is the case with Germany, whose export of high value and high tech machinery has been flourishing with Russian companies over the last years (automotive is one example). The issue of gas reliance from Russia gives Russia currently an advantangeous lever (the dependence on russian gas ranging from 30% in some countries to 100% in others within the EU). If Russia were to withhold supply, it would hurt Europe in the short term; but I am convinced that Europe as a unit would find alternate solutions to the energy supply and thus in the longer terrm Russia would be without one very valuable customer for their abundance of gas. As for the US, they have the least to lose with sanctions as their manufacturing industry is to a lesser degree reliant on exports (and in particular exports to Russia).

In my mind Russia and some European countries would be the real loosers if severe sanctions were implemented.