More elements to consider for the sanctions maneuver after the invasion of Ukraine. The United States imported more gasoline and other refined petroleum products from Russia than from any other country in 2021, according to a recent Forbes report.
For the international media, this statistic will complicate President Joe Biden’s announcements to geopolitically fence the economy of the former Soviet Union. For this reason, he foresees a difficult trade with Russia with the balance tilted in his favor, “although certainly gasoline and oil imports exacerbate that imbalance.”
In 2021, Russia accounted for 21% of all US gasoline imports, with Canada in second place at 17%. By value, Russian imports increased by 71.05%, which is slightly lower than global imports, which increased by 80.53%. The Russian total was $12.78 billion.
“However, this is not a record year for gasoline imports, thanks to the increase in US production caused by hydraulic fracturing,” he replies.
In contrast, the United States exported 84.94 billion dollars of gasoline and other refined petroleum products in 2021; that is, about six times more than those Russian imports.
“All that gasoline distorts the trade balance, of course. In 2021, 82% of all US trade with Russia was an import, and only 12% a US export. The average of the United States with the world is 38% of exports and 62% of imports”, says Forbes.
US: Exports to Russia
What the United States exported to Russia in 2021 were civil aircraft and parts, parts for motor vehicles and passenger vehicles. Those three alone accounted for more than 25% of the total. But there were also exports of satellites and related equipment, a category that includes vaccines, tractors, medical instruments and diesel engines.
“What further complicates geopolitics is that the United States will be, in essence, in a trade war with both Russia and China, inherited from previous President Donald Trump and which Biden has chosen to leave standing,” he continues.
For Forbes, it is increasingly difficult to act “as if the world had not returned to the Cold War of decades” after enjoying 30 years of globalization, caused by the simultaneous collapse of the Berlin War and the Soviet Union, as well as the opening of China led by former President Deng Xiaoping.
“Both Russia and China, under President Xi Jinping, are moving aggressively to expand their territories, whether in Eastern Europe with Crimea, Ukraine and increasingly puppet Belarus, or in the South China Sea with Hong Kong. and the territorial disputes, the created islands and the ever-present risk of the sovereignty of Taiwan”, the report concludes.
Source: Larepublica
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