mrshowrules: I honestly think some sanctions should be extended to countries trading with Russian and countries with zero sanctions against Russia.  Countries like Serbia, Mexico and Brazil.

Perhaps not harsh sanctions but something that is felt and sends a message.

We'd just look like bullies and it wouldn't go over well.

Russia's biggest trade partners are India and China.  We will not sanction either of those countries for obvious reasons, so if we start picking on those smaller countries we'd look bad and push those countries further into the sphere of influence of Russia.

It would totally not be worth the blowback as it wouldn't impact Russia all that much if they did stop trading with them as India and China contribute multitudes more than all those countries combined.

So the cost if sanctioning those countries isn't worth the benefit we'd get if it did force them to stop.

mrshowrules: dkulprit: mrshowrules: I honestly think some sanctions should be extended to countries trading with Russian and countries with zero sanctions against Russia.  Countries like Serbia, Mexico and Brazil.

Perhaps not harsh sanctions but something that is felt and sends a message.

We'd just look like bullies and it wouldn't go over well.

Russia's biggest trade partners are India and China.  We will not sanction either of those countries for obvious reasons, so if we start picking on those smaller countries we'd look bad and push those countries further into the sphere of influence of Russia.

It would totally not be worth the blowback as it wouldn't impact Russia all that much if they did stop trading with them as India and China contribute multitudes more than all those countries combined.

So the cost if sanctioning those countries isn't worth the benefit we'd get if it did force them to stop.

Probably true but easier to say that when Ukraine seems like they are doing well in the ware.  What if Russian was making gains and murdering Ukrainians at greater rates.

I don't like the idea of picking on Mexico either but if they are supporting Russia economically - you can't exactly ignore that either.

Nothing mexico is sending to Mexico is sending to Russia, be it money or goods is enough to help the war effort.

And even if Mexico were to halt all trade with Russia tomorrow it would not only barely be a blip on Russia's war effort, it can and will be easily picked up by China and India in both directions.

Unlike oil and it's derivatives that will cost Russia billions to redirect because they will have to build new refineries and pipelines to get petroleum products to China and India, the stuff traded with Mexico are all easily shipped product and they just have to redirect shipments to Mexico to China and India.

In fact the only thing forcing Mexico to stop trade with Russia would do is severely hurt the US food industry (we'd be farked on fresh produce) and strengthen China.   China knows that Russia doesn't have any other options so China would renegotiate sweetheart deals and they'd be getting stuff they need like fertilizer and metals at a fraction of the cost, increasing their GDP and securing food stock while the US would be reeling from food shortages.

Russia is earning around 156 million USD per month from trade with mexico.  Let's pretend 100% of those profits went into the government coffers instead of only a fraction as the majority of it goes to private companies and the Russian government only collects the taxes on it.

But let's ignore that and pretend all 156 million per month is going straight to the russian government instead of a tiny fraction of that.

That's 5.2 million USD per day the Russian government is earning.

Which is .57777777% of the estimated 900 million Russia is spending on the war PER DAY.

in reality the Russian government is only getting a fraction of that money in collecting taxes, so it would be more like .005% of the daily war expenditures.

Now if mexico was trading with them vital stuff for the war effort directly I'd agree with you.  Stuff like Proccessors, precision machining equipment, high quality metals, stuff to make rocket fuel, armor, etc.

But they're not sending dual purpose goods, they're sending consumer goods that will have no direct impact on the war effort, the overall trade is a fraction of a percentage of their daily war costs, and even if they were to lose it outright the war effort would not be impacted because it would be like the bank taking a fraction if a penny out of your bank account.

And even if they did lose the trade with mexico the products mexico produces are things that both China and India produce or could spin up in a matter of days to fill the gaps.

And the stuff they export to mexico would just be picked up by those same countries as they're goods that are currently a global shortage of and Russia would actually make more on as cost of shipping would be less.

While the impact to Mexican agriculture would be catastrophic, and by extension US food supply/security.

Just not worth it.

If stopping trade with mexico would have the impact on Moscow like cutting off oil imports did (about 1 billion USD per day) I'd say it would be worth it, but we're going into a global food shortage because of the lack of fertilizer, Ukranian wheat, and droughts....  so basically destroying the Mexican agriculture production would be globally catastrophic that would make the energy shortage in Europe going into winter look like child's play.

There are way bigger fish to fry that would actually have an impact.  As it stands right now forcing Mexico to stop trading with Russia would have a negligible impact on the war effort, if any at all, and would cause more global issues than it is worth.

It might prevent a single platoon in the Russian military from being able to be fully supplied per day or make a handful of russian platoons be slightly short on supplies per day.