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“I assume this violate WTO agreements.”

Yes it does. “Most-Favoured-Nation” (“MFN”) treatment requires members to accord the most favorable tariff and regulatory treatment given to the product of any one member at the time of import or export of “like products” to all other members. This is a founding principle of the WTO.

However, it looks good on paper but it is going to be tough to enforce. We live in a world where no one is self sustaining and trade moves so fast with independent items that cutting off someone will pass the pain around.

For Russia, let’s look at natural gas. If they get slapped for giving it to China at a lower price and don’t for other countries to include the US since we have been supplying arms, training, and cash to the Ukraine, they can just continue to China and tell everyone else what they are going to pay. The middle east has been doing this for half a century and nothing has changed except they were cash strung. And taking away their birthdays isn’t going to have any effect. It becomes a standoff on who will go broke first or will care if they do. This is why Biden cutting off our petroleum pumping in the US, to include natural gas, is so stupid as it puts the US into a losing status without the Russian natural gas dependency.

Russia is the world’s second-largest producer of natural gas, behind the United States, and has the world’s largest gas reserves. Russia is the world’s largest gas exporter. In 2021 the country produced 762 bcm of natural gas, and exported approximately 210 bcm via pipeline.

In January of this year Biden cancelled the sales of oil and gas that Trump had set up and yesterday cancelled the last seven oil and gas leases in ANWR and previously told Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to refuse all new leases to include the Rockies that are known to house a tremendous supply of petroleum that we may need. It may get cold this winter if Russia tells us to take a hike. And they’re used to going without.

wy69