An Ask Me Anything thread is soon to follow. Here’s the context:
I never expected to travel the world of a dollar-based central bank digital currency implementation. Two years ago, I was surprised by the construct of the Western sanctions against Russia; however, my curiosity was driven more by the outcome of the intended economic isolation, and not necessarily about the granular construct of the sanctions themselves.
What surprised me initially, was the conversation that never took place in the financial sector. For the first time in history the U.S Dollar was being used as a weapon, not only against Russia, but against any Western corporation who did not comply with the demands of the U.S government. I began highlighting the issue MARCH 5, 2022.
The sanctions against Russia were unlike any set of sanctions that came before. The financial sanctions against Iran, Cuba, North Korea and Venezuela all stood as examples of prior economic sanction constructs, but the financial sanctions against Russia were different. The SWIFT exchange was shut down, Western trade into Russia was halted, and private Western corporations were forced to divest themselves of assets held within Russia.
Under the guise of “economically isolating Russia”, the sanction regime was driven by the U.S. Treasury, U.S. State Dept., and fully supported by Western allies in Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Each of the aforementioned nations followed the exact same path.
Given the history of the prior decade,where Russia enlarged its footprint of influence, the sanction regime just did not make sense. It was obvious that non-Western nations would continue trading with Russia, and most of those same non-Western nations were trading with the USA. My simple question was, “won’t alternate countries just step in to fill the void of trade eliminated by the sanctions?”
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