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Bulletins and News Discussion from July 7th to July 13th, 2025 - Sanctions on Russia: The Sequel

Image is of the Power of Siberia natural gas pipeline, which transports gas from Russia to China. This isn't an oil pipeline (such as the ESPO) but I thought it looked cool. Source here.

Trump has recently proposed a 500% tariff on goods from countries that trade with Russia, including India and China (who buy ~70% of Russia's oil output), as well as a 10% additional tariff on goods from countries that "align themselves with BRICS." Considering that China is the largest trading partner of most of the countries on the planet at this point, and India and Brazil are reasonably strong regional players, I'm not sure what exactly "alignment" means, but it could be pretty bad.

Sanctions and tariffs on Russian products have been difficult to achieve in practice. It's easy to write an order to sanction Russia, but much harder to actually enforce these sorts of things because of, for example, the Russian shadow oil fleet, or countries like Kazakhstan acting as covert middlemen (well, as covert as a very sudden oil export boom can be).

Considering that China was pretty soundly victorious last time around, I'm cautiously optimistic, especially because China and India just outright cutting off their supply of energy and fuel would be catastrophic to them (and if Iran and Israel go to war again any time in the near future, it'll only be more disastrous). Barring China and India kowtowing to Trump and copying Europe vis-a-vis Nordstream 2 (which isn't impossible, I suppose), the question is whether China and India will appear to accede to these commands while secretly continuing trade with Russia through middlemen, or if they will be more defiant in the face of American pressure.

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912 comments

  • Flavio Bolsonaro: "How do we get out of this mess now? We'll continue with our pride, right? ‘We're Brazilians’? We're all proud to be Brazilians, but how do we resolve this situation? If you look at the Second World War, what did the United States do to Japan? It dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima to demonstrate its strength. What was Japan's reaction at the time? They said: ‘Look, we're patriots here; this is US interference in our country; we're going to resist; out with the Yankees’. What was the consequence three days later?"

    "A second atomic bomb in Nagasaki and then, yes, on August 16, 1945, two weeks after the first bomb, there was a formal surrender by Japan. So this situation has to be seen as a war negotiation, yes, where we are not in normal conditions; we are not in a position to demand anything from the Trump administration; he will do whatever he wants, regardless of our will. It's up to us to take responsibility for preventing two atomic bombs from falling here in Brazil so that we can then announce that we're going to grant amnesty; so that we can then announce... I think it's a second thing that he'll also want to put on the negotiating table because it's what's in his letter, which is the issue of freedom of expression on social networks."

    The informal announcement of the surrender took place on August 15, 1945, nine days, not two weeks, after the first bomb, dropped on August 6. It wasn't until September 2 that it was formalized.

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912 comments