Excited to share my latest piece on American state capitalism and critical-mineral diplomacy, which now runs on three tracks: 🏈 “America First” deals; 🤝 Bilateral agreements; 🌍 Pax Silica, a coalition-of-capabilities framework. www.iiss.org/online-analy...

My final publication of the year is on supply-chain resilience as the backbone of economic security. Without resilient supply chains, no economic security, and thus no national security.

The US' growing intervention in corporate America signals a shift towards a more state-influenced capitalism–one that blends market power with political leverage, which resembles the 🇷🇺 model, where firms share profits in exchange for market access or protection. My take www.iiss.org/online-analy...

No, the EU won't impose 100% tariffs on China overnight as Donald Trump has demanded. Here's why.

The recent US-China tit-for-tat over chip-design software and rare earths raises key strategic questions. Which export controls are non-negotiable and which can be used as leverage? How do US and Chinese strategic leverage compare? And how are chokepoints evolving? www.iiss.org/online-analy...

Since 2019, China has been modernising its economic statecraft, beefing up one economic tool in particular – export controls. China’s recent use of export controls demonstrates the evolution of Beijing’s economic statecraft. www.iiss.org/online-analy...

"Druck auf #Putin: Haben die #Sanktionen #Russland geschadet?" Mit einigen Einschätzungen, mit @mshagina.bsky.social und Alexandra Prokopenko. Danke, Sabine Adler www.deutschlandfunk.de/druck-auf-pu...

China has been modernising its economic statecraft, beefing up one economic tool in particular – export controls. On the latest changes in China's use of export controls from me and my colleagues 👇 www.iiss.org/online-analy...

Consider returning to Russia? Be prepared to pay for it. RU Avtovaz says Renault can buy back its majority stake if it pays $1.3 bn. Another bonanza for the Kremlin and Moscow is ready to leverage it: stricter demands for localization and tech transfers à la China. www.reuters.com/business/aut...

How do sanctions give Washington leverage in negotiations with Moscow? And what can Europe and Ukraine do if the U.S. eases restrictions? For answers to these and other questions, Meduza spoke to researcher @mshagina.bsky.social.

On the prospects of Western corporates returning to Russia (spoiler: very low). In great company with @jakluge.de and @edwardfishman.bsky.social www.wsj.com/world/russia...

The EU is exploring more aggressively ways to seize Russia’s frozen central bank assets as a collateral to compensate for the destruction of Ukraine's energy infrastructure. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Russia says it could concede $300bn in sovereign assets as part of the peace deal. Further evidence that Moscow wrote off the assets a long time ago, but is happy to leverage them b/c it knows the West thinks Russia cares about them. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

🎶Tune in to listen to our podcast on Trump's Russia policy, sanctions and the peace deal: www.iiss.org/podcasts/sou...

What can give the EU a seat at the table? Sanctions can play a key role here. Brussels and London can leverage their lion's share of Russian sovereign assets. www.ft.com/content/b427...

"Lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities which will emerge from a successful end to the conflict in Ukraine." Wtf? www.state.gov/secretary-ru...

Waltz: the negotiated exchange serves as a show of good faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine. Low-level exchange from Russia. The Q is what concessions the US gave in return. www.ft.com/content/00d0...

New US attorney general Bondi has disbanded DOJ's Task Force KleptoCapture responsible for enforcing sanctions on Russian oligarchs and refocused the resources to tackle cartels and transnat'l crime organisations. So much for Trump's harsh talk on Russia! www.compliancecorylated.com/news/us-atto...

Great example, which shows the limitations of a 'smart sanctions' approach: Russia and Turkey used the nuclear project in 2022 to dance around US sanctions imposed on Russia’s central bank, with Rosatom and Gazprombank playing the key role. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

🤦When will Europe learn from its past mistakes? It's Russia who gambled and lost its game of weaponization. Going back to business as usual on energy will not incentivise Russia to come to the negotiating table, but encourage it to double down on its maximalist goals in UA www.ft.com/content/a19a...

On Trump's madman strategy: "Persuading leaders of foreign governments to yield to a demand, after all, requires not just convincing them that resisting will be punished. It also requires convincing them that yielding will actually prevent punishment."

Russia's shadow fleet isn't immune to Western chokepoints: flags of convenience are convenient until the US, UK and EU exert enough pressure on them. Barbados will remove 48 ships b/c of UK sanctions, Panama will delist 68 ships sanctioned by the US. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Despite all the hype, Trump is unlikely to succeed in using sanctions as leverage to bring Russia to the negotiating table. Three reasons why: www.ft.com/content/64b7...

The EU's finally thinking out of the box: to ensure that Russia sanctions are extended and thus to safeguard the bloc's measures on sovereign assets, Brussels' one fallback option is to utilise a wartime decree from Belgium to block the transfer of assets from the country. www.ft.com/content/3c99...

"In the past, Beijing’s responses were measured. But its words and actions are growing sharper, and the targets of its retaliatory blows are widening to include supply chain vulnerabilities, critical minerals and individual companies." www.nytimes.com/2025/01/17/b...

In the incoming Trump admin, energy sanctions will be a key piece of leverage over Russia. The important Q is of sequencing: will Trump ramp up energy sanctions pressure ahead of negotiations or will he ease them to incentivise the oil majors to seal the deal? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Following latest US sanctions, tanker rates from Russia to China have tripled. Higher freight costs and deeper oil discounts will push Russian crude closer to non-sanctioned crude. www.tradewindsnews.com/tankers/tank...

The Biden administration has issued sweeping new sanctions against Russia's energy sector, incl. measures against GazpromNeft and Surgutneftegas, more than 180 vessels, and dozens of oil traders, oilfield service providers, insurance companies, and energy officials ofac.treasury.gov/recent-actio...

"Chinese track": Due to massive problems with 🇨🇳 banks, major 🇷🇺 banks are calling for the creation of a centralised system that would simplify payment settlements. Facilitated by 🇷🇺 &🇨🇳central banks, the scheme would be linked to 11 🇨🇳 provinces. www.moscowtimes.ru/2025/01/10/k...

Trump changed his claim to end the war in Ukraine from '24 hours' to 'six months': “The whole [Trump] team is obsessed with strength and looking strong, so they’re recalibrating the Ukraine approach".

Beijing signals it's ready to retaliate early and hard to create leverage with Trump. In late 2024, Beijing blocked the export to the US of critical minerals used for chipmaking, squeezed the supply chain for US-made drones, and launched an antitrust probe into Nvidia. www.ft.com/content/ca79...

A perfect case that illustrates the challenges of friendshoring, the politicization of economic instruments, and the need for an economic statecraft doctrine. Biden blocks Japan's Nippon Steel deal on national security concerns. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...

China hacked the US Treasury and OFAC, gaining access to unclassified information on potential targets of US financial sanctions. The hack occurred through a breach in software provided by a third-party vendor, ironically called BeyondTrust. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

Russia's shadow fleet is now a national security issue. The UK and Denmark were reluctant to step up monitoring in their straits on the pretext of the oil price cap violations. But given that the Russian ships are "monitoring all Nato naval ships and aircraft”, it's way beyond an environmental issue

Many tidbits I disagree with, but the main one is centered around *how* to bring Russia to the negotiating table. The absence of a defined endgame has been indeed a major weakness of Biden's Russia/Ukraine policy, but what levers are used to force Russia to negotiate is key.

@himself.bsky.social: "But the rapid growth of the U.S. economic security state has come at the cost of coherence. U.S. officials have few guidelines on when to employ particular economic weapons and few ways to ensure that they don’t interfere with each other"

The rise of middle powers and their use of economic statecraft: Qatar has threatened to cut off gas shipments to the EU if Brussels strictly enforces the corporate due diligence directive. Qatar appears to have been inspired by Trump's tactics. www.ft.com/content/2260...

Tariffs are the new sanctions. But easier to lift.

Biden admin shifting authorization of NS2 sanctions to executive order 14024 to make sure they dont expire (could have be triggered when R-ukr gas deal ceases). As expected, no one in admin had interest in easing up on R energy proj. Still waiting on new measures www.state.gov/re-imposing-...

Any export control policy on tech - cutting-edge or not - should take into account third-party intermediaries. To halt 🇨🇳 access to computing power, Biden aims to introduce purchasing caps on AI chips shipped to SE Asia and the Middle East. Could smth similar be done on 🇷🇺? www.wsj.com/tech/u-s-pre...

A senior Novatek executive visited Washington to discuss sanctions on Arctic LNG2. The incoming Trump admin is unlikely to be interested in easing sanctions on Russian LNG. If anything, Trump would double down on restrictions and ship more US LNG to Europe. www.highnorthnews.com/en/exclusive...

The main response to Russia's sabotage appears to be the customary sanctions. A clear case of when sanctions are ill-suited and overused. Instead of creating a sanctions regime on 🇷🇺 hybrid threats, the EU/G7 should think more outside the box. Economic statecraft is a craft, not a rubber-stamp.

Beijing will continue to exploit the nature of dual-use goods with plausible deniability. The EU will continue to convince itself that this is not yet a red line.

The Biden admin is considering secondary sanctions on Russian oil, akin to those on Iran, as a way of pressuring Russia ahead of the Trump admin and negotiations. If adopted, Trump may be deprived of a strong measure, but can still claim victory. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Texas Instruments accounts for ~14% of the components retrieved by 🇺🇦 authorities. "Western manufacturers can definitely do better due diligence. That requires adopting a holistic approach in risk management: moving away from a box-ticking, pro forma compliance to a comprehensive & investigative one"

Russia has systematically weaponised its diaspora to circumvent sanctions and export controls. Countless examples of dual citizens engaged in violations. Here is another one where a former Russian engineer from ASML stole documents about chips and lithography technology. nos.nl/nieuwsuur/ar...

The EU is discussing mitigation measures with the US, following its sanctions on Gazprombank. Putin's amendment to the decree didn't alleviate concerns about sanctions risks. One option includes payments via a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of Gazprombank. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Key implications of the amendment: - Gazprombank is no longer in charge of converting hard currency into roubles = higher transaction costs for the buyers of Russian gas: - an offshore bank can become a new finan channel for payments = faster transactions, Gazprombank is likely to lose its key role

Many didn't believe that Russia would blink, but today Putin amended his decree for allowing the processing of gas payments by another banks, beyond Gazprombank. There are two options now: rouble payments though a designated bank or mutual debt cancellation. www.kommersant.ru/doc/7347395?tg

With Russia's budget deficit at 3.3 trillion rubles, 21% key interest rate and 2-3 million job vacancies, Russia has to choose between hyperinflation or an economic freeze, says Vladimir Milov, former Deputy Minister of Energy in an interview with Frontelligence Insight 🧵Thread: