It has become something of a fixation in the Donald Trump war chest of options that cowing, discomforting and baffling his various counterparts on the international scene with tariffs is bound to work at every corner. Certainly, when it comes to allies, the potency of such announcements is magnified. Nation states, confusing common interests with friendship, have dreams broken before the call of firm, sober diplomacy.
When it comes to dealing with Russia, though, the matter of tariffs sits oddly. In 2024, US imports of Russian goods came in at US$2.8 billion. What is imported from Russia is certainly of value: radioactive materials indispensable for US power stations, nitro fertilisers, platinum.
All this is modest enough, but Trump is convinced that the threat of economic bruising of his own flavour will work to influence Russia’s war policy against Ukraine. Soon after his inauguration, Trump declared that, were a deal to conclude the Russia-Ukraine war not reached soon, there would be “no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries.”
Instead of being dismissed out of hand as unworkable and ill-reasoned, the old idea that Russia will be brought to heel continues to tease a coterie of dreamers. The UK paper, The Telegraph, is very much with Trump on this, claiming that “redoubling efforts to cut off the revenue Russia generates from oil and gas imports” will drain Russia’s war effort. This could involve, for instance, targeting the now famous shadow fleet ships that continue to distribute oil and gas in global markets undetected. But importantly, those in the European Union would have to pull their weight in weaning themselves off a continued reliance on Russian fossil fuels, a reliance that has tended to make something of a mockery, not just of unity within the bloc, but of the very policy itself.
The reading by the US president on the state of the Russian economy is woefully ignorant about the coarsening of Moscow’s resilience since 2014, when Western governments began to impose a sequence of sanctions across Russian banking, defence, energy, manufacturing, technology and other sectors that eventually reached their peak after February 2022. That same month, US President Joe Biden was unwarrantedly confident that the sanctions regime would “impair [Russia’s] ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.”
The Council of the European Union, also keeping in step with Washington’s financial excoriation of Moscow, understood that these moves would weaken the Russian war machine’s “ability to finance the war and specifically target the political, military and economic elite responsible for the invasion [of Ukraine].”
The immediate response was steady, if necessary, diversification. Alternative markets were sought, with willing participants. Russian oil found itself in Chinese and Indian markets. Alternative trade routes were pursued. Moscow was making use of the Global South with relish, and its war economy did not collapse. GDP grew by 3.6% in 2023 and made a similar performance the following year.
This is not to say that the Russian economy is a model of peak health, and certainly not one to emulate. It has been battered and boosted in equal measure, given heavy injections of stimulus. Alexandra Prokopenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center describes the country’s economy as “like a marathoner on fiscal steroids – and now those steroids are wearing off.” The real troubles for President Vladimir Putin are more pressing in sustaining not just the war effort but domestic infrastructure and social programs. The juggling act, so far fortuitously favourable to him, is not a sustainable venture.
The broader lesson here is that economic weapons that seek to strangle, coerce and direct a nation state into action are blunt, inconsistent in their application and often counterproductive. The most telling response from the target state is adapting and adjusting to disruption, and Russia shows better signs than most in doing so. Shocks are eventually absorbed.
Furthermore, it seems that Trump’s threats are playing a splendidly inert role in the Kremlin. One public statement made by Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, did suggest that Russia was merely waiting for something more concrete, exempting the president from any lashing words otherwise used for his predecessor. “We have to see what does the ‘deal’ mean in President Trump’s understanding,” the official reflected. “He is not responsible for what the US has been doing in Ukraine since 2014, making it ‘anti-Russia’ and preparing for the war with us, but it is in his power now to stop this malicious policy.”
There may be something in what Polyanskiy says, but in the meantime, Trump will focus on inflicting the most concerted damage that any indiscriminate tariff regimes can do: against countries with which the United States does extensive business with. Mexico and Canada have far more reason to worry than Russia, as do other US allies.
Dear reader, we need your support
Independent sites like The AIMN provide a platform for public interest journalists. From its humble beginning in January 2013, The AIMN has grown into one of the most trusted and popular independent media organisations.
One of the reasons we have succeeded has been due to the support we receive from our readers through their financial contributions.
With increasing costs to maintain The AIMN, we need this continued support.
Your donation – large or small – to help with the running costs of this site will be greatly appreciated.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
From the article: But importantly, those in the European Union would have to pull their weight in weaning themselves off a continued reliance on Russian fossil fuels…
Easier said than done.
The EU was getting good quality fuel from Russia and getting it cheap.
Already, with no end to the conflict in sight, there’s talk of re-opening Nordstream.
In the end, economics trumps everything.
Overall, Russia’s exports have fallen dramatically since its invasion of Ukraine.
Europe is trying to wean itself off dependence on Russian fossil fuels.
The Russian economy is struggling under economic sanctions.
The situation is a long always from success for Russia
From Politico 16.1.25 “Europe is buying Russian gas at an unprecedented rate in 2025, spending billions of dollars the Kremlin can use to fund its war in Ukraine just weeks after the end of a major transit agreement raised hopes the continent may break its dependency on Moscow.”
In the end, economics trumps everything.
@Steve Davis:
You may enjoy this book review:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2025/01/16/never-too-much-the-crisis-of-democratic-capitalism-wolf/
In the meantime Billy (‘Covax’) Gates has been busy in the laundry:
https://www.gatesnotes.com/my-first-memoir-source-code
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/14/global-covid-pandemic-response-bill-gates-partners-00053969
In the end greed, money, hubris, unfettered power and corruption Trump everything.
Before Russia invaded Ukraine, the value of its exports were $58.1 billion . The value of its exports as at Nov 2024 were $32 billion
Looking at the big picture suggests Russia is struggling under economic sanctions
It is certainly a long way from succeeding
And with regard to Trump
° He is an irrational narcissist
° He has no structured , coherent policy framework
° He has no philosophical political orientation
° He makes it up as he goes
The Putin regime can predict the likely range of responses from mainstream politicians. The escalation options available to adversaries will be within a range of rationality
Not with Trump.
His response is most likely to be based on whether he perceives it as a personal affront, a personal insult, whether he feels diminished by the action.
His response will range from do nothing to go nuclear.
It’s possible that this trait of self indulgence and complete unpredictability will act as a handbrake on the Putin regime
Herbert, I’ve only read the first article so far, but it’s a ripper.
Thank you.
Headline from oilprice.com — Jan 30 2025.
EU Officials Discuss Restart of Russian Gas as Part of Ukraine Peace Deal
From the article — “Now the idea to resume Russian gas flows, reportedly endorsed by some EU officials from Hungary and Germany, has created a backlash among other EU officials and among Ukraine’s staunchest allies in the bloc. The talks have also caused concern and confusion among U.S. LNG developers and exporters who are preparing to boost their sales to Europe.”
It’s not hard to see what’s going on behind the scenes here.
Economic sharks from the US are circling the EU, expecting to make a killing for years to come.
Europe is paying the price for allowing the US to occupy and colonise them after WW2.
When you allow military forces of occupation onto your soil, you become a colony and your foreign policy becomes that of the occupier. (Australia take note.)
Future developments in regard to energy for the EU will be fascinating.
Will EU economic needs overcome US foreign policy?
Will US foreign policy prevail?
Will that cause a split in the EU? Cracks are already showing.
In the end, economics trumps everything.
Steve, ‘In the end, economics trump everything.’ I guess the meaning of economics deeds to be defined here, since it does appear, with growing imbalance between the haves and the have nots, that it may well be that greed trumps everything.
Economics:
1. the branch of knowledge concerned with the production, consumption, and transfer of wealth.
2.the condition of a region or group as regards to material prosperity.
‘he is responsible for the island’s modest economics’
(Oxford languages)
Contemporary economics appears to sprout a lot about wealth but it seems that the vast majority of populations can only watch on with envy at the most wealthy accumulate even more than they will ever need. And with the tariff debacle economics becomes a form of blackmail.
Absolutely Bert, I agree entirely.
And the tariff debacle is the ultimate proof of the utter uselessness of free trade agreements. Trump’s main targets, Canada and Mexico, are the two other signatories to the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1996.
It was intended to be an example to the rest of the world. It had failed to produce anything of substance before Trump came along. It’s now effectively dead and buried.
All of this chaos derives from the fact that the US has defined economic threats, that is, economic competition, as threats to national security.
This simply paranoia.
Where did the paranoia come from?
From re-defining economics.
The sane, sensible, productive definition of economics is the one you outlined.
But “the haves” have now defined it as the study of scarcity.
Because they live in fear.
This explains why Trump wants peace in Ukraine:
“Mr Trump said he wants to negotiate an agreement with Ukraine where Kyiv supplies the US with rare earth minerals – which are used in electronics – in exchange for continued US aid.”
Summed up as; “What’s in it for me?”
Michael, the Trumpisms go from bad to worse.
From The Guardian: Donald Trump has said Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza due to the devastation left by Israel’s war on Hamas, in effect endorsing ethnic cleansing of the territory over the opposition of Palestinians and neighbouring countries.
Compare that to the Scottish rebel leader Galgacus, as quoted by the Roman historian Tacitus, 98 C.E.
“The plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power as well. Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others, only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”
Since no one else has said it, may I do so?
1. Trump threatens, indeed imposes tariffs.
2. Various shares fall. Trump (or organisation) buys.
3. Trump pauses tariffs after “discussions”. Shares rise.
4. Trump sells and creams the profit.
No other explanations required my friends!