Skip Navigation
Remote View
news @hexbear.net
SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him] @hexbear.net

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.

Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

You're viewing a single thread.

912 comments

  • The El-Salvador of the Baltic: Estonia in Talks with NATO Members to Expand Estonia's Prison Rental System

    ERR - Johannes Voltri today

    In addition to the agreement with Sweden, which has already reached the ratification stage, to keep its prisoners in Estonia, and Finland's interest in concluding a similar agreement, there are other countries that have informally explored the possibility of renting prison places from Estonia, Justice and Digital Affairs Minister Liisa Pakosta said.

    "Yes, there are more than one. /---/ But I would skip discussing this list here," Pakosta told Vikerraadio's "Uudis+" programme on Friday.

    Asked to clarify the information, however, she added that Estonia has said from the beginning that the only reason to do this is for wider security cooperation. "Maybe we are only talking about NATO member states," the minister said.

    At the same time, Pakosta stressed that Estonia, unlike many other countries, would rent out its prisons on the condition that Estonian laws would remain in force in these detention facilities, and he has said as much to Finnish Justice Minister Leena Meri.

    "It's just that the Swedes have clearly been the quickest, and we have had these negotiations with the Swedes at executive level. Now it is up to the parliaments of both countries to decide. If the people's parliaments in both countries ratify the agreement, it will go ahead. If they don't, then we'll start looking again," he said.

    Asked whether he himself would like to conclude a similar agreement with Finland, the Justice Minister replied. We have no ambition to become some kind of country that rents out prison space. We are not aiming to rent out a prison for a prison.

    • Machine translated with DeepL
912 comments