The US Department of Treasury has announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies - Rosneft and Lukoil - in an effort to pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.
The US Department of Treasury has announced new sanctions targeting Russia’s two largest oil companies - Rosneft and Lukoil - in an effort to pressure Moscow to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine.
Never will Trump make any sense. Is he against Russia, for Russia. Don’t know…
This makes absolute sense: Trump always goes for options he can walk back on and which have direct effects he can boast about.
Sending Tomahawks would be far more effective, but can’t be fully walked back (you can’t just “unexplode” whatever they were used to explode) and their effects are indirect so Trump can’t just gloat that “I did this”.
Trump is a dumb person’s idea of what a smart person looks like, driven by nothing more complex than wanting to look like he’s winning, and if you try and find any more complex motivations for him than “what will make me look good today” it will be an impossible task because he’s far more shallow than the average person: he doesn’t play 5D chess, he plays 1D chess.
He doesn’t know either.
For russia. These sanctions are basically toothless, Russian corporations have already decoupled from the Western banking system and are shadow-fleeting all their oil to willing buyers in India and China without much reduction in flow. This is a theater play.
Trump is transactional, not strategic. He is in constant, unconcscious need of narcissistic nourishment. Because of his constant failure, he will follow whatever instantaneous action supplies him so that he can maintain his inner self-image.