> How can something like this be allowed into The United States. Are trade sanctions actually bureaucratic yellow tape to get around with middleman shell companies?
Not just US. Did you know that as soon as Russian sanctions began with the latest war escalation, German exports of chips and machinery to Kyrgyzstan rose 900%?
(I'd be the first to say this sounds like a conspiracy but by now even Reuters reported on it)
Polish imports of wood from Kazakhstan have gone up 50x since the introduction of sanctions on Russia - even though Kazakhstan has close to zero forests and its domestic production of wood has always been very very very low - but suddenly they produce so much wood it almost exactly matches what used to be imported from Russia before. And everyone knows this is a rouse and this is really Russian wood imported into Kazakhstan first, but regulators are either unwilling or unable to do anything about it.
I thought the idea was that we know that sanctions are circumvented this way, but it puts a tax on all dealings.
Russia selling oil to India? It's now part of the world oil market, so decreases demand from India for other nations oil. Effectively they're still selling the same amount of oil, but now they get rupees instead of $, € or ₽.
Russia selling wood through Kazakhstan? Well it's the same wood being sold, but Kazakhstan is getting money out of this somehow. There are people to bribe on the way. There are logistics to be done. They will achieve a lower price on the wood now.
Problem is, if you sanction all the countries willing to launder for Russia, you'll probably end up with a few Western countries (and not even all of them).
Not just US. Did you know that as soon as Russian sanctions began with the latest war escalation, German exports of chips and machinery to Kyrgyzstan rose 900%?
(I'd be the first to say this sounds like a conspiracy but by now even Reuters reported on it)