Has Putin shot himself in the foot by blocking food imports?

[MrDibble]

@JohnT

Staple defined: “A staple food, sometimes simply referred to as a staple, is a food that is eaten routinely, and in such quantities that it constitutes a dominant portion of a standard diet in a given population…”

Are you under the impression the average Russian eats beef at every meal? Russian staples are bread, beets and potatoes.

[williambaskerville]

[QUOTE=AK84;17620221European farmers are fucked this season [/QUOTE]

That’s possibly a bit of an exaggeration. Here in Ireland, it’s reckoned the ban will effect about €60 million of sales, out of total agricultural exports of around €9 billion.

Even if we fail to find substitute buyers for the entirety of the €60 million, it’s hardly a body blow.

[Little_Pig]

This is how you create a black market…

[Cicero]

The local financial expert on television the other night stated ti will have no effect on Australia- any agricultural products normally sold to Russia will be snapped up by China or South East Asia.

[Cicero]

ti = it.

[Martin_Hyde]

@Voyager

John T’s FAO link show just under $30 billion in imports in 2010, so $9 billion is almost a third of that. Cheese is just over a billion, so cutting out fancy cheeses is not all that is happening. Not to mention that small changes to supply can have major impacts to prices.

And let’s just say that the credibility of a Russian state pollster on how the sanctions won’t matter is somewhat in question. I’m sure that the state position is that the only people the sanctions will hurt are the rich who the masses probably hate anyway.

It’s $43bn as per Russia’s own customs data, maybe in 2010 the FAO’s number of $30bn was correct, but that was 4 years ago. 9/43 = 20% of Russia’s food imports are impacted by the import ban. Russia itself and analysts who have reported in all the major newspapers have indicated that the 20% that is affected by the band is predominantly not staple goods. It’s like no one wants to believe that Russia didn’t significantly hamper their efforts to import staples for some reason.

[Corry_El]

The Russian sanctions are symbolic. They affect a small amount of Russia’s consumption and a tiny amount of the agricultural output of the countries sanctioned, and that’s before considering substitution. Country A was exporting a food item to Russia; now it will export most of it to Country B. Country C was formerly exporting a similar item to Country B, but isn’t included in the sanctions so will now sell it to Russia. Small price movements and willingness of Russian consumers to consume a slightly different mix of products…and it all happens with barely a ripple overall.

But there could be some producers in the sanctioned countries which lose money, and alert other exporters to Russia they might suffer losses, and the squeaky wheel tends to get the oil politically within the sanctioned country. That’s the idea of the sanctions, and also mainly the idea of Western sanctions against Russia which have so far also been largely symbolic.

Russia has the ability to seriously disrupt Europe’s economy by withholding gas exports. The West has the ability to destroy Russia’s economy by not buying gas exports (which Russia can eventually sell elsewhere but not right now) but moreover shutting Russian companies out of the global (particularly USD based and US influenced) financial system. But it’s not clear the West is anywhere near wanting to inflict that pain on itself, even if the effect on Russia would be greater. Anyway, really serious sanctions haven’t been seen on either side yet.

As far as Putin, it’s not clear how much harm he’s willing to inflict on Russia, but he might actually want to inflict a fair amount. His poll numbers are high as it is, but ultimately he doesn’t want up and down poll numbers and periodic demonstrations against him in the context of the current sham democracy with him as ‘President’. He wants to be outright ruler for life and not to have to worry about public opinion turning against him or how much he might have to rig a future election to win it. Disruption in Russia might be his opportunity to shift to that system, ‘made necessary by the emergency’. So it’s not clear that creating economic disruption in Russia, to some degree, isn’t actually Putin’s intent.

[clairobscur]

@Martin_Hyde

Russia faces an even worse calculus in the 2010s, any land Russia might want to “absorb” like eastern Ukraine or Crimea that it has already absorbed will come at a cost that will probably never pay for itself. Russia is literally being belligerent over net-negative regions.

Russia is following a nationalist policy, so whether those added regions are a net economical gain or not is mostly besides the point. Furthermore, Crimea at least is strategically of the upmost importance, so again whether it’s a wealthy region or not is irrelevant.

The objective being, roughly, a “greater Russia” regrouping ethnic Russians, there was hardly a better moment to advance it than when Ukraine was plunged into chaos. Finally Russia has decided a while ago that antagonizing the west is of little importance for her, which, in fact, is probably true. Not pissing off the USA and Europe isn’t a priority at all anymore. They just don’t care about that.

So, a golden, once in a lifetime opportunity at the cost of some small economical sanctions for a short duration? Of course, they seized it. Given their foreign policy agenda, that’s a no-brainer.

I suspect we’re generally overestimating the influence of the western world on the world stage, especially wrt medium powers like Russia, and underestimating the will of Russian politicians (not just Putin) to make Russia its own, separate center of influence.

[Nobody]

According to Russian owned RT

The immediate trade restrictions will create a $9.5 billion gap in Russia’s food market that needs to be filled. Russia is in talks with Latin American countries on how to fill this hole with meat from Brazil and cheese from New Zealand.

Russia is also holding talks with Custom Union members Kazakhstan and Belarus, which it will ask to prevent any transit of Western goods into Russia.

Promising to develop its own industries and protect the economy, Russia will support the new measures at home, and has already allotted $50 billion to farmers.

However, some analysts fear it won’t be enough, and that food prices will rise, further worsening Russia’s inflation problem. Higher inflation will not only hurt those buying groceries, but also Russia’s export sectors- oil, gas, metals, and mining.

Restaurants will have to adapt, as they source nearly 50 percent of their produce from abroad, according to OAO Rosinter Restaurants Holding, which operates 370 restaurants in Moscow, Bloomberg News reported.

New Zealand? According to this they aren’t exactly neutral in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Anyway, it looks like the Russian people are going to take a hit, but like other posters have said, due to propaganda of the state owned media, they might gladly do it to help their oppressed Russian speaking brethren in fascist Ukraine.