Author Archives: Yves Smith

Yves here. With an active US effort to isolate Russia, which Russia is seeking to undermine (with only limited success so far) in strengthening ties with China and other emerging economies, most analysts have seen the geopolitical struggle in terms of short-term effects, such as on Russia’s and Europe’s growth rates over the next year. At the same time, the Chinese initiative to create a development bank, meant to rival the World Bank, is seen by many as an important step in breaking the dollar hegemony, along with moves by China and Japan to enter into oil contracts denominated in currencies other than the greenback.

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, we believe the frisson over the demise of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency is greatly overdone. As much as the US is abusing its role, particularly in its aggressive use of its influence over the dollar payments system as a weapon, there are simply no viable candidates for replacement on the horizon.

However, this post examines a consequence of US economic aggression against Russia that has not rceived the attention that it merits: that of reducing the amount of international trade, something economists see as a driver of growth. Note that per the Lipsey Lancaster theorem, there is ample reason to doubt the near-religious belief that more open trade is always a good thing. However, sudden restrictions in trade, which is what is taking place with US/European sanctions on Russia and Russia implementing counter-sanctions, is certain to cause short-term dislocations. And as we noted in a recent post, the cordon sanitaire being placed around Russia will led it to operate more as an autarky, which may not necessarily be a negative in the medium to long term.

This post seeks to identify the impact of reduced trade between Russia and Europe. This sort of analysis could become more germane going forward. While a currency rival to the dollar any time soon looks to be far-fetched, ever-more obvious US economic imperialism may lead other countries to strengthen trade ties among themselves to the detriment of the US, or like Russia, to move to greater self-sufficiency as a defensive measure. While economists assume that our current open trade system could never be rolled back, that was the tacit assumption during the last great era of open trade, the period right before World War I. The Great War put that all in rapid reverse gear. While no one expects a violent rupture, we may be in the early stages of seeing fractures developing in the trade system.