The passage of a new US sanctions package on Russia could disrupt America’s relationships with its biggest trade partners and isolate it from the world’s leading economies, Politico reported on Saturday. The proposed bill includes a steep 500% tariff on imports from any country that continues to buy oil, gas, uranium, or other key commodities from Moscow. 

Among those most affected would be India and China, which together account for approximately 70% of Russian energy exports. Several other nations that import Russian energy and uranium could also be subject to the bill’s penalties.

Imposing 500% tariffs on Chinese-made imports would likely trigger a surge in consumer prices, severely disrupt supply chains, and potentially push US unemployment to levels associated with a recession, Politico noted. 

The sanctions could be described as targeting the US itself since the country continues to rely on enriched uranium imports from Russia for its nuclear power sector. And it could effectively isolate the US from many of the world’s leading economies, including its European allies, the article says.

US Senator Rand Paul wrote in the publication Responsible Statecraft that the bill “essentially amounts to an embargo” and could trigger “economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.” He added that such punitive measures are unlikely to change Moscow’s core strategic goals and only further entrench the US in a “failing” foreign policy approach.

The sanctions bill was introduced in early April by a bipartisan group of senators led by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. In addition to 500% tariffs, the measure includes secondary sanctions targeting countries that maintain commercial ties with Moscow.

Graham recently proposed amendments to exempt countries providing military aid to Ukraine from the tariffs. The change would shield the EU, which continues to import gas from Russia. 

The senator described the bill as “one of the most draconian sanctions bills ever written” and the sanctions as “bone-crushing.”

Russia has consistently criticized Western sanctions, calling them illegal, and maintains that they have failed to inflict lasting economic damage. 

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that a total of 28,595 sanctions had been imposed on Russian companies and individuals in recent years – more than the total number on all other countries combined. According to the president, the West sought to eliminate Russia as a competitor, but its economy has only grown more resilient under pressure.

https://www.rt.com/news/618785-sanctions-bill-trade-disruption/

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Imposing 500% tariffs on nations that trade with Russia will backfire
If Lindsey Graham's bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country

BY SENATOR RAND PAUL

While tariffs make wars more likely, embargoes make wars difficult to avoid. Senator Lindsey Graham’s Sanctioning Russia Act calls for 500% tariffs on dozens of countries and essentially amounts to an embargo. 

If this bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.

In its insistence that Moscow be a permanent enemy of the United States, the foreign policy establishment is pushing to impose more punitive measures on Russia should they refuse to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. The Sanctioning Russia Act seeks to inflict a series of additional sanctions and prohibitions of various financial transactions with Russia. 

Yet, the most consequential and outright reckless provision of the bill seeks to enact minimum 500% secondary tariffs on countries who trade with Russia. Though the bill seeks to punish Russia, it will also punish America’s allies and even the United States itself. The global policemen in Washington are so incredulous that they cannot force peace between Russia and Ukraine that they formally abandoned even the pretense that their meddling is in America’s interests. 

Specifically, the bill directs the President to impose 500% tariffs on all goods and services imported into the United States from a country that “knowingly sells, supplies, transfers, or purchases oil, uranium, natural gas, petroleum products, or petrochemical products that originated in the Russian Federation.” This tariff is subject to increase by no less than 500% every 90 days, meaning some countries could face 1,000% tariffs in just a few months. 

In response to its invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its allies imposed some 16,000 sanctions, froze Russia’s sovereign assets, and implemented a series of severe financial restrictions. As the war wages in its fourth bloody year, it is safe to say that these measures unequivocally failed to alter Moscow’s war aims. 

This inevitable failure was, of course, easily predictable to anyone who honestly assessed Russia’s motives for launching the war. The Kremlin views maintaining influence over Ukraine as necessary to prevent Ukraine’s alignment with the West, particularly preventing its efforts to join NATO, as a core national security interest. Countries will go to great lengths to secure what they deem are core interests, and given the tremendous amount of blood and treasure it has expended, Russia is no different. 

Therefore, one should not expect additional punitive measures to alter Moscow’s strategic calculus in any meaningful manner.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/congress-sanctions-russia/

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