Countries are in a tough situation today, having to cope with COVID-19 while ensuring economic
development and livelihood.
However, ignoring global stability and livelihood concerns, the U.S. has imposed a series of
unilateral sanctions against Russia and forced other countries to obey them through the threat of
secondary sanctions. Its practices of weaponizing its economy, economic hegemony and financial
terrorism have triggered widespread concerns of the international society, and are condemned by
many countries.
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, the U.S. has made every effort to avoid direct
military engagement. However, by providing massive military assistance for Ukraine and
imposing sanctions, it has launched hybrid warfare against Russia.
The U.S. not only imposed sanctions on Russian government officials, but also excluded a number
of Russian banks from the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunication) messaging system, the main system underpinning global financial
transactions. Besides, it has frozen the assets of Russia’s central bank, placed new debt and equity
limitations on Russian enterprises and entities, imposed bans on the exports of over half of its
high-tech products to Russia, and prohibited the purchase of petroleum and natural gas from
Russia.
The facts demonstrate that the target of these unprecedented sanctions is not a truce, but rather the
militaristic and economic annihilation of Russia. Even after positive signals were released from
the new round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine held on March 29, the U.S. and its
allies still said they would keep intensifying sanctions on Russia. It’s fair to say that the Ukraine
crisis once again revealed the true colors of the “sanctions superpower” – to safeguard its
hegemony by fair means or foul and at the expense of the interests of all the people in the world.
Driven by economic hegemonism, the U.S. implemented comprehensive and indiscriminate
sanctions, which impeded global economy and hurt the people.
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) noted that the
war in Ukraine and massive sanctions against Russia have triggered a contraction in global trade,
driving up food and energy costs and forcing the IMF to lower its global growth forecast.
According to Oxford Economics, the sanctions against Russia may bring down the GDP in the
Eurozone by 0.5 percentage points before the end of 2023.
It is obvious that if the U.S. further escalates its sanctions, a major crisis may hit global trade,
finance, energy, food, and industrial and supply chains, wreaking havoc on the already slow global
economy..
Plundering the world with financial terrorism, the U.S. has exacerbated global poverty and
inequality. The middle-income trap in Latin American countries, Japanese economic crisis and
Southeast Asian economic crisis were all related to American financial hegemony. The number of
sanctions imposed by the U.S. has surged tenfold during the past 2 decades.. Economic and
financial sanctions are what the country constantly resorts to.
Recently, the White House unfroze and embezzled $7 billion in Afghan funds in U.S. banks,
sparking protests in many places across Afghanistan. Such practice was called a bare robbery.
Today, freezing the assets of Russia’s central bank, the U.S. is once again making the rules of
international finance a tool for it to plunder others.
The U.S. will definitely hurt itself upholding economic hegemonism and financial terrorism. Chief
Economist of Euro Pacific Capital Peter Schiff believes that the U.S. would suffer a long-term
consequence of turning the U.S. dollars into a weapon with sanctions, which will cause countries
to worry about whether this weapon would be used against them one day. IMF Chief Economist
Gita Gopinath said the world would reevaluate the security of taking U.S. dollars as foreign
exchanges. Zoltan Pozsar, a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of the Treasury noted the U.S.
and other Western countries have shaken the foundation of the existing international monetary
system by freezing the assets of Russia’s central bank.
Even the allies of the U.S. are trying to mitigate the damaging consequences of U.S. sanctions. An
expert pointed out that a crack is appearing in the monetary system from which the U.S. has long
benefited, and the Ukraine crisis will hasten the process.
It is neither responsible nor ethically justifiable for the U.S., under the disguise of the so-called
“rules,” to undermine international order and provoke confrontations with economic and financial
hegemony.
The U.S. should immediately discard the Cold War mentality. It needs to see farther and pursue
common interests, rather than hegemony and private gains, so as to work with all relevant parties
to safeguard the long-term stability and sustainable development of the world.
(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy
and international affairs.)
