Most relevant for Russia, even in the current attempts to create a more independent emergency war economy, are oil prices on the world market - and thankfully, they fell off, too:
Opec and Russia agreed to "expedite" oil production a few days ago, I assume as a favor to Trump.
It does hurt russia, but it helps him control the US, so it's likely a calculated move.
While I would not rule out your explanation, I personally think it's more likely international pressure, trying to mitigate a global recession as well as possible. Most of OPEC actually have a lot invested in other ventures than oil, and China, too, does not have much interest in a global recession. Hell, even Russia itself actually doesn't, really, they are just the party that would be most interested in still trying to keep oil prices up as much as possible, even if it hurt them in the long run, due to their ongoing invasion and fragile economy propped up by resource income making short-term stability a more pressing matter.
Urals was at $60 when Putin agreed to Minsk2. The Soviet Union broke at $30.
Russia is already under sanctions, so why would they need tariffs on top of that!?
They tariffed uninhabited islands. Also not all trade between the US and Russia is banned.
Why do Iran and Syria need them, then?
In some ways the tariffs seem Russia friendly (such as the astronomical tariff rate on Moldova for no good reason), but Russia isn't included because it's a "Column 2" country alongside Belarus, Cuba, and North Korea, and therefore all subject to the stiff tariffs we already impose on the worst of the worst. I just posted a similar comment in a similar post. Posts like this make us look bad, Russia wasn't "spared" it was just already under column 2 tariffs. Please understand the tariffs before posting something like this, it makes us look bad to idiots on the right who already think we're dumb.
Column 2 status would absolutely make sense if we weren't talking about an administration that slapped tariffs on penguins.
Russia still has billions in trade with the US, far more than any of the other three in column 2 and far more than the vast majority of trade partners assigned tariffs. The tariffs were assigned with a simple trade deficit calculation that Russia was spared. If anything, that this administration is so eager to "get even" that it slaps tariffs on penguins while missing one of its largest trade deficits says more about their lack of attention to detail than anything else.
Oh I completely agree with you, the tariffs don't make sense at all and some of the Annex II countries have even higher tariff rates than the Column 2 countries in the HTSUS. I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to say "Russia was left off the tariff list" in context. If you say "that list penalized random countries harsher than North Korea or Russia" that's true, but "it's not even on the list" is something that just gives conservatives fodder for their delusional narrative of liberals and leftists mindlessly freaking out. We're freaking out with good reason, but "Russia isn't on the list" isn't exactly the good reason. The list making no fucking sense is the good reason.
Edited to correct a typo.
I love that I can hear it in his voice.
And now we just wait for the inevitable US lift of the embargo, while conveniently forgetting to apply the tariffs.
The meme requires that it at least has "which is nice" phrase at the end. But preferably, the entire "So I've got that going for me. Which is nice." sentence.
There's a problem that occurs when a lot of economic sanctions have been placed against a country - that country's economy becomes so disconnected from everything else that whatever is left of it is basically independent from international influence. There are no economic or political levers left to pull that will have any impact on that country, so it's difficult to do anything to change their behavior short of direct military action.
We have a similar problem when the federal interest rate is at or near 0% - there is no more adjustment room in the economic system, so the overall behavior can't be adjusted effectively. There has to be some wiggle room if you want to influence the system's behavior. Once the brake pedal is on the floor it can't go any further down.
