The Economic War Between The United States And Russia Just Shifted Into Overdrive
Francesco Abbruzzino, The Uncensored Report, LLC
Economic conflicts have a way of becoming shooting wars, and so we should all be deeply alarmed by what we are witnessing. With each passing day, authorities in the United States and authorities in Russia are imposing even more measures which are intended to punish the other side economically. Thankfully, our militaries are not shooting at one another yet, but an economic war has already started and it just shifted into overdrive. On Tuesday, Joe Biden announced that his administration has decided to ban all imports of Russian oil and natural gas…
“Today I am announcing the United States is targeting the main artery of Russia’s economy. We’re banning all imports of Russian oil and gas and energy,” Biden said at the White House. “That means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable at U.S. ports and the American people will deal another powerful blow to Putin’s war machine.”
About the same time, the government in the UK also announced that it will be banning Russian oil…
The U.K. government will ban all imports of Russian oil, its latest sanctions move against Vladimir Putin’s administration over the war in Ukraine.
The measure — taken in concert with the U.S. — will be phased in over the rest of 2022, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said. The ban applies to refined products such as diesel — which the U.K. relies on Russia for about a third of its imports. It won’t apply to natural gas.
Will these moves hurt the Russians?
To a certain extent.
The rest of Europe has not joined the U.S. and the UK in this boycott yet, and Russia will always be able to sell massive quantities of oil and natural gas to China.
In response to this latest move, Vladimir Putin signed an order which will ban the export of certain raw materials…
Within hours of Joe Biden announcing a far-reaching ban on all US imports of Russian oil – while warning Americans that gas prices are about to “go up further” – Vladimir Putin is reported to have signed his own counter-measure decree..
Russia’s RIA news agency is reporting that the new decree blocks all exports and raw materials from Russia “of certain materials” – with state media reports noting the specific list will be made public in two days.
We will have to wait and see what specifically will be on that list, but I have a feeling that it will definitely include nickel.
On Tuesday, trading of nickel was suspended after it suddenly more than doubled in price…
The London Metal Exchange on Tuesday suspended the trading of nickel after prices more than doubled to surpass $100,000 per metric ton.
The LME said in a statement that trading will be suspended for at least the remainder of the day.
A global shortage of nickel is going to severely hurt industries all over the planet.
And of course Russia could decide to cut off all oil and natural gas exports to the western world as well. If that happens, natural gas prices in Europe would soar to catastrophic levels, and the Russians are warning that we could eventually see the price of oil reach $300 per barrel…
Russia has threatened to close a major gas pipeline to Germany and warned of $300 oil prices if the West goes ahead with a ban on its energy exports.
“It is absolutely clear that a rejection of Russian oil would lead to catastrophic consequences for the global market,” Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said Monday in an address on state television.
“The surge in prices would be unpredictable. It would be $300 per barrel if not more.”
Unfortunately, we are not talking about a short-term crisis.