Sanctions Lose Power: Russia’s Economy Continues To Expand, Sanctions Irrelevant

The United States is experiencing the problem of their sanctions no longer working as nations increasingly disobey what is declared by those in government.  Despite sanctions, the Russian economy continues to grow at a steady pace and expand.

Inflation in Russia remained low while the expansion of the economy occurred last year according to a World Bank report. “Although economic sanctions tightened, Russia experienced relatively low and stable inflation and increased oil production. As a result of robust domestic activity, the Russian economy expanded at a 1.6 percent pace in the year just ended,” said the report.

The U.S. has long used sanctions to harm the economies of other countries for a variety of reasons; however, those sanctions seem to be failing.  According to a report by RT, The World Bank pointed out that Russia and other oil exporters “maintained steady growth in 2018, supported by a rise in oil prices.” In Russia, “growth has been resilient, supported by private consumption and exports,” the bank said, projecting a short-term slowdown this year to 1.5 percent. In 2020 and 2021, the bank expects an increase in the growth rate of Russia’s GDP to 1.8 percent.

In October, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) raised its forecast for Russia’s GDP growth in 2019 to 1.8 percent. IMF chief economist Maurice Obstfeld said that the positive impact of rising world oil prices on the Russian economy would outweigh the negative effect of Washington’s sanctions. –RT

In May of last year, Bloomberg reported that the U.S.’s “sanction power” was reaching its limits. It appears that countries susceptible to U.S. sanctions are dropping the dollar like hotcakes and working around them making the issuing of sanctions powerless.

Six years ago, in the course of investigating London-based bank Standard Chartered Plc over suspicions it had flouted U.S. sanctions against Iran, the New York State Department of Financial Services published an email from a senior executive to one of his counterparts in New York. “You f***ing Americans,” the message read. “Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we’re not going to deal with Iranians?” –Bloomberg

Russia isn’t the only nation to make sanctions obsolete.  China has set up its own lending institutions parallel to the Washington-based World Bank and International Monetary Fund and pushed the yuan as an international currency. The country is likely to strengthen its presence in Iran no matter what Trump does.

The key decisions, to comply or defy, will be made by the only actors on the same economic scale as the U.S.: China and Europe. “For absolutely core national security reasons, China will find ways around the hold of the U.S. banking sector,” says Jeffrey Sachs, an economics professor at Columbia University.