Sanctions on Wealthy Russians?

[Airbrush]

Suppose the US leads international economic sanctions on Russia and certain wealthy Russians, can Russia retaliate by placing sanctions on the US, US Corporations, or wealthy Americans?

Edited March 17, 2014 by Airbrush

[jduff]

Obama and his administration are truly incompetent. Most that have sanctions against them have no funds or assets in the west. Nor do they care to. Obama once again is showing how weak of a president he really is.! Where is Reagan when you need him!

[moth]

Raygun's probably providing arms to terrorists and funding right wing death squads in third world hellholes. Maybe Obame should have rolled over like W did when the ruskys invaded Georgia.

[iNow]

Suppose the US leads international economic sanctions on Russia and certain wealthy Russians, can Russia retaliate by placing sanctions on the US, US Corporations, or wealthy Americans?

Yes, but the impact of those sanctions is directly proportional to the financial activity they have with Russia.

 

Since that activity with Russia is quite low overall (especially relative to activity with other regions like Europe, Mexico/South America, China, or India), the impact of such sanctions would be negligible at best.

 

Unfortunately, the same applies with what the president announced earlier today in terms of US sanctions against Russia and Russian oligarchs (low/limited financial/economic activity ergo low impact/low leverage).

 

I will point out that I disagree with the facile, overly simplistic, and ideologically anchored suggestion above that the perceived weakness/strength of Obama plays any relevant role here and suggest instead that most power in this situation lies with Germany/Merkel.

 

However, leaders in Germany (and neighboring countries) have an understandable reluctance to enact similar sanctions since more than 30% of their oil comes from Russia and retaliation from Moscow would have a significant negative economic impact domestically... All at a time when their own economy is already sputtering and struggling. A sudden retaliatory spike in Russian oil prices could cause enormous harm and so we wait.

Edited March 18, 2014 by iNow

[John Cuthber]

Obama and his administration are truly incompetent. Most that have sanctions against them have no funds or assets in the west. Nor do they care to. Obama once again is showing how weak of a president he really is.! Where is Reagan when you need him!

Why? What could Reagan have done differently?

 

Anyway, re.

"Suppose the US leads international economic sanctions on Russia and certain wealthy Russians, can Russia retaliate by placing sanctions on the US, US Corporations, or wealthy Americans?"

The simple answer is yes, but who wants to travel to Russia?

[jduff]

Sanctions? Only if the U.S or other western countries are willing to buy out Russias acquisition of advanced helocopter carriers from France! Sounds more like the west is huff and puff than anything else! http://www.nationalreview.com/article/373471/appeasement-paris-john-fund

Edited March 18, 2014 by jduff

[iNow]

Sounds more like the west is huff and puff than anything else!

Love the pot meet kettle irony demonstrated here. Thanks for the chuckle.

[Endy0816]

IMO they just didn't want to do anything too serious. Not that hard to pull up financial records and see who would be least likely to actually care. They were certainly specific in their targeting.

Edited March 18, 2014 by Endy0816

[CaptainPanic]

Suppose the US leads international economic sanctions on Russia and certain wealthy Russians, can Russia retaliate by placing sanctions on the US, US Corporations, or wealthy Americans?

 

If you want to hurt Russia, get the EU on board.

If you want to get the EU on board, start exporting your shale gas to the EU, so the EU doesn't depend on Russian gas. At the moment, there is a defacto ban on export of shale gas.

 

But really, why would you want to corner Russia even more? The citizens of the Ukraine just wrestled the Ukraine out of Russia's control, and the EU is now consolidating that. Putin is trying to make it sound like he's won. But his trophy is but a small one.

[John Cuthber]

Just to clarify things, here's a list of the people against whom the sanctions have been agreed.

Dmitry Rogozin - Russian deputy PM (US)
Valentina Matviyenko - head of Russia's upper house (US)
Sergei Aksyonov - acting PM of Crimea (US and EU)
Vladimir Konstantinov - speaker of Crimean parliament (US and EU)
Viktor Yanukovych - former Ukrainian president (US)
Andrei Klishas - member of Russia's upper house (US and EU)
Leonid Slutsky - head of Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) parliamentary committee in Russia (US and EU)
Sergei Zheleznyak - deputy speaker of Russia's state Duma (EU)
Alexsandr Vitko - commander of Black Sea Fleet (EU)

 

They are not being targeted because they are rich, or have assets in the West.

They are being targeted because they are the people (seen as) responsible for this cockup.

 

Seems reasonable to me.