Biden Cuban immigrants

In March 1 1 local time in Washington, the stick of Biden's trade sanctions against Russia finally fell. According to the World Wide Web, Biden gave a speech in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. The focus of the speech was the cancellation of normal trade relations between the United States and Russia, which was revealed to the American media by White House sources the day before.

Biden said in his speech: The United States will greatly reduce its trade ties with Russia and ban the import of Russian seafood, alcohol and diamonds. The United States and its European allies have adopted a policy of trade sanctions against Russia to cooperate with the cancellation of Russia's "most favored nation" status. At the same time, Biden also said: The United States is cutting off the export of expensive watches, cars, clothing and other high-end luxury goods to Russia.

Prior to this, Biden's administration had been under pressure from both parties in Congress to impose stricter trade sanctions on Russia. Just after Biden's speech at the White House, US House Speaker Pelosi said in an interview with the media on Capitol Hill: Congress will soon pass relevant legislation to cooperate with Biden's new sanctions against Russia.

Most-favored-nation status has always been the benchmark of global trade, ensuring that countries in the World Trade Organization receive the same treatment. At present, Russia, Cuba and North Korea are excluded from MFN treatment by the United States.

So how effective can Biden's trade sanctions against Russia be on March 1 1? According to the Associated Press, the cancellation is mainly symbolic, indicating that the United States will continue to use economic and financial means to expand sanctions against Russia, thus expressing its strong support for Ukraine. According to the data released by the White House, the earlier ban on importing Russian oil, natural gas and coal has cut off about 60% of the goods imported by the United States from this country, while Russia explicitly prohibits the export of engines and related chemical products that Russia frequently exports to the United States. There are few areas of trade cooperation between Russia and the United States. The new import ban announced on Friday totaled more than $654.38 billion.

According to the statistics of relevant American departments, Russia exported less than 1% vodka and less than 2% seafood to the United States in June and February of 5438. At the same time, the Washington Institute for Progressive Policy also published an article saying that since Russia's exports to the United States are mainly natural resources, it usually does not face tariff increases because it loses its "most favored nation" trade status.

It is worth noting that in this speech, Biden suddenly mentioned chemical weapons in addition to the cancellation of the "most favored nation" treatment for Russian trade goods. Biden warned in his speech that if Russia decides to use chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, he will pay a heavy price.

Previously, in the Syrian war, the United States used "chemical weapons" as the red line. Since then, there have been many incidents in which Syrian government forces used "chemical weapons" to crack down on the opposition, but they were all proved to be false in the end. In 2003, the United States launched the Iraq war on the grounds that there were "large-scale chemical weapons" in Iraq. Powell, then Secretary of State, held a vial and vowed in the Security Council that the vial in his hand was the evidence that Iraq possessed chemical weapons collected by the United States. But so far, Iraq has not found chemical weapons, so the United States has become a laughing stock of the international community.

This time, the Biden administration once again warned Russia that the use of chemical weapons is likely to be the same trick. Experts say that there is absolutely no need for Russia to use chemical weapons. Under normal circumstances, only the weak side will make such a decision on the battlefield. Although the progress of the Russian army is blocked at present, it still has the best advantage on the battlefield. This move by the United States is likely to plunge Russia into unfavorable international public opinion and put it under tremendous international pressure.