-Russian economy eyes new U.S. sanctions and trade wars
The new sanctions package prepared by the U.S. against Russia and the trade wars between the U.S. and China were the most important developments in terms of macroeconomic indicators in Russia last week.
The U.S. Treasury Department enacted new sanctions against Russia over last year's poisoning of double agent Sergey Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the U.K. with a chemical substance.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zaharova called the U.S.' new sanction decision for Russia a 'provocation' and said the U.S. was allowing the situation of Skripal and his daughter to further diminish relations with Russia.
'The attempts to force Russia to change its foreign and domestic policy and to abandon its own interests for U.S. benefit have been completely unsuccessful,' Zaharova said.
In August 2018, the U.S. enacted the first round of sanctions on the grounds that Russia had violated the law on the destruction of chemical and biological weapons in the Skripal incident.
Zaharova referenced the fact that the U.S. law of 1991 on the destruction of chemical and biological weapons was used as a pretext for the new sanctions against Russia, and in defense said, 'Russia has emptied its stocks of chemical and biological weapons long ago under the Chemical Weapons Convention. But the U.S. is in no hurry to leave its large arsenal.'
Russia, whose largest export is oil, is closely monitoring the markets for the possible negative impact of falling oil demand resulting from the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China.