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Rexii's avatar

The argument here seems to assume that (1) Russia wasn’t prepared for an energy export ban in early 2022 and (2) if an export ban had been imposed it would have ended the SOM immediately.

Luis - you also seem incredibly optimistic that Europe could have weathered any resulting energy price hikes. But gas was already at 10x american prices even without the export ban.

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Antonio Ferreiro Chao's avatar

When European countries decided to supplement the financial restrictions already imposed on Russia with trade measures, the decision to act on imports/exports could have been simplified (passing the ballot to Mr. Lerner) to acting on imports or exports (one of the two). However, given the choice between one or the other, I believe that cutting certain EU technological exports—critical to the war effort—(imports from Russia) would have been more effective and efficient than cutting EU imports of Russian oil (exports from Russia), since oil is a basic energy commodity in demand on the world market (Russia could find many other customers, even if it had to settle for a lower price than that charged to the EU), while strategic EU technological exports to Russia would be much more difficult for Russia to acquire in markets other than the EU in this time of war.

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