That was my quote actually.
Businesses can say/ do whatever. But if we ship supplies and Putin decides it is an act of war, his people will quickly pull russian businesses in the ‘correct’ mindframe. Just as Russian leaders have done for centuries.
Let us not forget that the mere threat of sanctions has a massive effect on financial markets and each such threat costs many dollars to all involved. Eventually all involved will tire of perpetual instability...coming from our impotence.
Dat’s about it.
Trade is fungible.
If we outlaw selling business services, airplane parts, computers, etc., to Russia, the companies will then look for other buyers for all those goods.
Middlemen, in fine Marc Rich style, will trot around the globe, make a few calls, and set up a deal. A company in a third country will buy them, then possibly a company in yet another country will buy them, and then Russia will be able to buy them from that company.
Russia will pay a little extra markup, our company will have to cut its price a little, the middlemen will make a huge profit on their phone calls and transactions.
Like wise, the things we import from Russia - we’ll buy them from a company in another country. But guess where those things will have originated from ?
The only sanction that has an effect that’s actually annoying is when the country is cut out of central banking, i.e., they are not allowed to move any money via the Western international banking system, even to make payments.
But in the case of a country where we’re doing all that legitimate trade, i.e., IBM, Dupont, Goldman Sachs, etc., you put those American companies in a nasty, nasty, hurtful bind. Western central banking won’t cut off Russia. They didn’t even cut off Hitler during WWII ! BIS was essential for German gold transfers, all supervised by an American head of BIS at the time.