Posted 25 Feb. 2022 at 6:10 amUpdated Feb 25. 2022 at 7:08
When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States was ready to draw targeted sanctions. These “will impose a severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and in the longer term”, declared the American president during a press conference Thursday evening. “We have carefully designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on Russia and minimize the impact on the United States and our allies. »
These sanctions notably prohibit American companies from exporting certain electronic products to Russia. They also target products manufactured outside the country, but which use American technologies or components made in the United States.
These rules will apply in particular to products used in aviation, aeronautics, maritime transport, telecommunications, computing and microelectronics. Consumer products such as smartphones and household appliances, on the other hand, should be spared.
A previous one: Huawei
The US Commerce Department has also released a list of 49 Russian companies involved in the war effort, which will face additional restrictions. “The European Union, Japan, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand have announced that they will put in place such restrictions,” he said in a statement.
These restrictions are reminiscent of the sanctions imposed on Huawei two years ago by the Trump administration. At the time, the Chinese telecom giant had been hit hard by American restrictions, which caused it to lose almost a third of its turnover.
The army and the Russian economy should especially suffer in the long term. “The effect will no doubt be to freeze Russian technology stock where it is now,” notes Emily Kilcrease of the Center for a New American Security. “They won’t be able to improve it, or replace it, or improve it. The expert envisages an initial phase of confusion, followed by a “long-term corrosive effect”, to the detriment of Russia.
Drop in the price of oil
The United States, on the contrary, opted for more limited sanctions in the energy sector. The country is a net oil importer. More than half of its imports come from Canada. But 7% of them come from Russia, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Which is far from negligible.
In his speech, Joe Biden sought to reassure Americans by promising that the impact on prices at the pump should remain limited. “In our sanctions package, we have ensured that the energy payments will continue. We are monitoring energy stores to limit any disruption,” he said. He asked the American oil and gas giants not to take advantage of the situation to raise their prices.
The United States is also coordinating with other oil-producing countries to limit price increases, the president said. As a last resort, the country could put on the market barrels of oil from its strategic reserves, in order to limit the rise in prices.
These announcements have already helped calm the fever in the markets. The price of a barrel of oil fell to 93 dollars on the New York Stock Exchange, according to the Bloomberg agency. This almost erased the surge in prices to over $100 earlier in the day.
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