The law on new sanctions imposed by the US against Russia obliges the US authorities to ensure that Russian citizens and those companies that are already under sanctions do not receive assistance from foreign citizens and companies.
As the US Treasury Department explained, the sanctions will be applied to foreign individuals and companies that knowingly engage in a significant transaction with Russia's entities that already under sanctions, could be subjected to the US sanctions. The so-called secondary sanctions imply a whole set of measures against non-American persons cooperating with banned Russian sectors, projects and individuals: now banks and companies around the world can be exposed to them, as they cooperate with Russians from sanctions lists, RBC reports.
Chairman of the State Duma’s Financial Market Committee, Anatoly Aksakov, speaking with Vestnik Kavkaza, noted that now it is now important to understand how consistently the new law will be applied. "We need to analyze these explanations of the US Treasury, although, of course, these decisions are outrageous. It turns out that they are interfering in Russian jurisdiction, and obviously we need to think through a set of measures that will neutralize these actions," he said.
According to the deputy, Russia's major economic partners may ignore these sanctions. "China, of course, will act with caution, but it is still proud enough in terms of interfering in its internal affairs. The same goes for India. As for the withdrawal of assets of Russian companies from the US, they have already done it for a long time," he stressed.
"In the short term, it will have negative image effects for the US itself, because all countries interacting with the US will be on guard. The largest countries will think ten times before starting to work with a country that allows them to dictate terms based on their domestic political considerations. Their withdrawal from the dollar will weaken the US on the world stage and the countries will gradually switch to mutual settlements in national currencies, "Anatoly Aksakov predicts.
The director of the Roosevelt Fund of Study of the US at Moscow State University, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Yuri Rogulev, said that the explanations to this law are not so significant, how it will be applied in practice is much more important. "The question is how the President and the State Department will interpret these provisions of the law - because any provision of the law lends itself to a certain interpretation," the expert explained.
"The big question is how it can be realized, whether other companies will agree with it, whether the US business will agree. So far the consequences of this law are difficult to predict," the director of the Roosevelt Fund of Study of the US at Moscow State University noted.
He warned that the new anti-Russian sanctions would have negative consequences for the United States if Washington extended them to other companies - European or Asian, that cooperate with Russia. "It is difficult to predict the possible economic damage, but if the interests of other countries are affected, then, of course, the US can get into a difficult situation," Yury Rogulev concluded.
