Trade war risks global crisis: Putin
st petersburg — Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Friday that the world could be heading for an unprecedented economic crisis due to the confrontational trade policy and protectionism being pursued by the United States.
Without directly naming US President Donald Trump, who has slapped on tariffs and pulled out of trade deals, Putin lamented that a new era of protectionism was emerging and “breaking” the free trade system responsible for global prosperity.
“Today we need not trade wars or even trade truces, but trade peace,” Putin told an economic summit in St Petersburg, also attended by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Global trade rules “should be clear and the same for all”.
But “breaking the rules is becoming the rule”, Putin said in an apparent jab at Trump, who has abandoned a Pacific free trade deal and forced a renegotiation of the US pact with Canada and Mexico.
The Kremlin leader said that a combination of sanctions, trade barriers and a lack of trust was hugely dangerous.
“A spiral of sanctions and barriers is just beginning and is affecting a growing number of countries and companies,” said Putin. The trade barriers and the mistrust they generate “could lead to a systemic crisis the likes of which the world has not seen before,” he said. Meanwhile, ‘toxic’ political infighting is preventing US President Donald Trump from improving relations with Moscow, Russia’s former ambassador in the United States and a long-time Trump campaign contact told The Associated Press on Friday.
Ties between the two countries
trade barriers and mistrust ‘could lead to a systemic crisis the likes of which the world has not seen before’ Vladimir Putin, President of Russia
have deteriorated steadily since Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and threw its weight behind separatists in eastern Ukraine. Moscow’s hopes that Trump would be willing to improve the relationship have been largely disappointed.
Sergei Kislyak, who served as Russia’s ambassador in Washington from 2008 until his tenure ended last year, told the AP that Trump appears eager to improve ties but a bad political climate is making that impossible.
“In the current environment, even for the president, who is interested in improving ties with Russia, it’s not that easy to do because of the legislation and the political climate, which is toxic,” he said.
Kislyak was called off last August amid scrutiny of his recurrent meetings with the Trump campaign staff as Special Counsel Mueller’s probe into the possible Russian meddling was gaining speed.
The long-serving diplomat popped up on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s radar after maintaining contact with Trump aides during the campaign and immediately after the 2016 election.
After Trump’s election, Kislyak spoke by phone several times with White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and discussed sanctions put in place by the Obama administration. The calls were monitored by US intelligence agencies, and days after Trump took office in January 2017, Flynn was interviewed by FBI agents about those talks. He acknowledged as part of his plea to lying during that interview.
Speaking on the sidelines of Russia’s showcase economic forum in St Petersburg, Kislyak, who now sits in the upper chamber of Russia’s parliament, expressed hope that mutual business interests will help overcome the bitter strain between Russia and the US.
“Economy has been chosen as a tool of political leverage,” Kislyak said. “They [Americans] are cutting the branch of the tree they’re sitting on with those sanctions.”
Viktor Vekselberg, another Russian billionaire who had to cut his share in some of his overseas holdings to shield them from U.S. sanctions, on Friday spoke in favor of maintaining ties between Russia and the US.