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    Before Ukraine Invasion, Russia and China Cemented Economic Ties

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    Facing a wary United States and worried about depending on imports by sea, China is buying more energy and food from its northern neighbor.BEIJING — As Russia wreaks havoc in Ukraine, Moscow has a powerful economic ally to help it resist Western sanctions: China.Chinese purchases of oil from Russia in December surpassed its purchases from Saudi Arabia. Six days before the military campaign began, Russia announced a yearslong deal to sell 100 million tons of coal to China — a contract worth more than $20 billion. And hours before Russia began bombing Ukraine, China agreed to buy Russian wheat despite concerns about plant diseases.In a throwback to the 1950s, when Mao Zedong worked closely with Joseph Stalin and then Nikita Khrushchev, China is again drawing close to Russia. As the United States and the European Union have become wary of China, Beijing’s leaders have decided that their best geopolitical prospects lie in marrying their vast industrial might with Russia’s formidable natural resources.Recent food and energy deals are just the latest signals of China’s economic alignment with Russia.“What happened up to now is only a beginning for both the Russian expansionism by force and the Chinese economic and financial support to Russia,” Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said in a text message. “This does not mean that China directly supports in any degree that expansionism — this only means that Beijing strongly feels the necessity to maintain and boost strategic partnership with Moscow.”The United States and the European Union are hoping that sanctions force Russia to reconsider its policies. But Wang Wenbin, the Chinese foreign ministry’s spokesman, said at a briefing on Friday that China opposed the use of sanctions.“Sanctions are never an effective way to solve the problems,” he said. “I hope relevant parties will still try to solve the problem through dialogue and consultation.”At the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has imposed an awkward diplomatic quandary on China by violating the principle of national sovereignty that the Chinese leaders regard as sacrosanct. While President Xi Jinping of China has not criticized Russia publicly, he could use his country’s economic relationship with its northern neighbor as leverage to persuade the Russians to resolve the crisis quickly.Mr. Xi and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia spoke by phone on Friday. An official Chinese statement said afterward that Mr. Xi had expressed support for Russia in negotiating an agreement with Ukraine — a stance that Mr. Putin has also favored, provided that Ukraine accepts his terms.Until now, much of China’s energy and food imports came across seas patrolled by the U.S. or Indian navies. As China’s leaders have focused lately on the possibility of conflict, with military spending last year growing four times as fast as other government spending, they have emphasized greater reliance on Russia for crucial supplies.China and Russia share a nearly 2,700-mile border, and in recent years China has become Russia’s largest source of imports and the biggest destination for its exports.“Given the geopolitical tensions, Russia is a very natural geopolitical partner,” said Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing.Initial Western sanctions on Russia have focused on limiting technology exports and imposing financial penalties. For now, U.S. officials have avoided targeting consumer goods, agricultural products and energy, to try to avoid harming ordinary people and further fueling inflation.China is the world’s dominant manufacturer of electronics, machinery and other manufactured goods, and has been supplying them to Russia in exchange for food and energy.A train carrying coal in Yekaterinburg, Russia, in 2020. China’s imports of Russian coal have more than doubled in the past three years.Maxim Babenko for The New York TimesThe new cornerstone of relations between China and Russia is the Sino-Russian nonaggression pact concluded in Beijing on Feb. 4. Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin reached the deal hours before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics and issued a statement saying the countries’ friendship “has no bounds.”The pact freed Mr. Putin to move troops and military equipment from Russia’s border with China to its border with Ukraine while ushering in closer economic cooperation.“The joint statement is strong and has lasting consequences for the new world order,” said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a research professor of political science at Hong Kong Baptist University.The Chinese and Russian governments share many values, particularly their antipathy to sanctions the West imposes on human-rights grounds. “The two sides firmly believe that defending democracy and human rights should not be used as a tool to exert pressure on other countries,” their pact on Feb. 4 said.When the Obama administration imposed sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014, China helped Russia evade them.It is not clear if China will help Russia evade sanctions put in place this week. On Tuesday, the Biden administration added to previous measures by announcing sanctions against Russia’s two largest financial institutions and sweeping restrictions on advanced technologies that can be exported to Russia. The technological curbs, when taken in concert with allies, would block roughly a fifth of Russian imports, the administration said.Chinese companies that circumvent those rules could face escalating punishment by the United States, including criminal and civil penalties, said Martin Chorzempa, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Those businesses could also be cut off from American technology and the financial system.ZTE and Huawei, two Chinese firms that were barred from receiving American technological exports, attracted the attention of the U.S. government in part for evading sanctions on Iran.“The interesting question is: Is China going to comply with this?” Mr. Chorzempa said. China also has a law designed to penalize companies for following extraterritorial sanctions by countries like the United States, he said, all factors that “could put companies in a real bind.”“If they don’t comply with the U.S., they’re in trouble with the U.S., but if they don’t comply with China, they could also face penalties in China,” he said.Of course, collecting fines from companies that are unwilling to pay and monitoring whether businesses comply with the rules could be difficult, Mr. Chorzempa added. “It’s already proving difficult to monitor the things that are already controlled, and if you expand that list, that’s going to be a real challenge to verify what’s going to Russia,” he said.Russia’s Attack on Ukraine and the Global EconomyCard 1 of 6A rising concern. More

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    How the U.S. and Europe Are Targeting Putin With Sanctions

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    WASHINGTON — The United States and Europe moved on Friday to personally penalize President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for his invasion of Ukraine, imposing sanctions aimed at freezing his wealth while continuing to try to cripple his military and economic capabilities through other new restrictions.White House officials said that President Biden intended to impose sanctions and freeze the assets of Mr. Putin, along with Sergey V. Lavrov, his foreign minister. Other Russian national security officials will also be subject to the sanctions, and the United States plans to impose a travel ban to restrict the movement of Russia’s top leaders.The decisions align the United States with its European allies, whose governments made similar moves earlier in the day.“Treasury is continuing to inflict costs on the Russian Federation and President Putin for their brutal and unprovoked assault on the people of Ukraine,” Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement announcing the sanctions.European leaders met into the early hours of Friday to hammer out an agreement over a new set of sanctions aimed more broadly at the Russian economy and at Mr. Putin himself, as his troops advanced in their invasion of Ukraine.One of the decisions was to freeze the assets of Mr. Putin and Mr. Lavrov, but not to impose a travel ban on them, according to three European Union diplomats and officials familiar with the draft E.U. sanctions.The new American and European sanctions are a provocative step given how rarely governments, including the United States, take aim at foreign leaders. Yet they may prove largely symbolic given that the status of Mr. Putin’s financial holdings has been cloaked in mystery and his money is not believed to be held in the United States.Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that imposing sanctions directly on Mr. Putin “sends a clear message about the strength of the opposition to the actions by President Putin and the direction in his leadership of the Russian military.”Speaking to reporters on Friday, Ms. Psaki said the decision had been made in the past 24 hours after consultation with European leaders. She would not comment on what impact she believed the sanctions would have on Mr. Putin. But she underscored that they were a demonstration of trans-Atlantic unity in opposition to his actions.While the United States has imposed sanctions on and frozen the assets of some Russian oligarchs, targeting Mr. Putin directly was a significant escalation. It puts him in similar company with Presidents Bashar al-Assad of Syria and Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, both of whom have been subject to personal sanctions by the U.S. government.Adam M. Smith, a former Treasury Department official who is now a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said placing sanctions on Mr. Putin sent a significant message given that the United States had never taken a similar action against such a powerful leader. However, he said that it was unlikely that the sanctions would affect Mr. Putin’s wealth or change his calculus in Ukraine.“I don’t think Putin is really going to lose much sleep on being sanctioned,” Mr. Smith said.The personal sanctions add to the growing list of restrictions that the Biden administration, in coordination with Europe, has rolled out. The United States has placed sanctions on major Russian financial institutions and the nation’s sovereign debt, and on Thursday, it took steps to prevent Russia from gaining access to American technology critical for its military, aerospace industry and overall economy.But the attempt to punish Mr. Putin has exposed the degree to which many European countries rely on Russia for energy, grains and other products. A package of penalties, which European leaders described as unprecedented in terms of its size and reach, was difficult to forge consensus on, even as Russian forces approached Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.Europe’s economies are deeply intertwined with Russia’s economy, and the more the European Union leans into Russian sanctions, the more its own members will also feel the pain. The toughest of sanctions could even derail the bloc’s tentative recovery from the recession induced by the coronavirus pandemic.That is why negotiators left off the table particularly difficult elements, such as imposing sanctions on oil and gas companies or banning Russia from SWIFT, the platform used to carry out global financial transactions on commodities including wheat. E.U. officials said one key reason for their reluctance to cut off Russia’s access to the platform was that Europe uses it to pay for the gas it buys from Russia.Experts said that the approved sanctions were tough and that the speed at which the European Union was moving was impressive. But some were critical of the leaders for not going further.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was scathing in a statement posted on Facebook on Friday.“This morning, we are defending our state alone,” he said. “Like yesterday, the world’s most powerful forces are watching from afar. Did yesterday’s sanctions convince Russia? We hear in our sky and see on our earth this was not enough.”Understand Russia’s Attack on UkraineCard 1 of 7What is at the root of this invasion? More

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    Why the Toughest Sanctions on Russia Are the Hardest for Europe to Wield

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    Moscow relies on the money it makes by selling oil and gas, but that energy fuels Europe’s economy and heats its homes.The punishing sanctions that the United States and European Union have so far announced against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine include shutting the government and banks out of global financial markets, restricting technology exports and freezing assets of influential Russians. Noticeably missing from that list is a reprisal that might cause Russia the most pain: choking off the export of Russian fuel.The omission is not surprising. In recent years, the European Union has received nearly 40 percent of its gas and more than a quarter of its oil from Russia. That energy heats Europe’s homes, powers its factories and fuels its vehicles, while pumping enormous sums of money into the Russian economy.How each country’s dependence on Russian gas has changedShare of total natural gas imports from Russia More

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    E.U. Considers Due Diligence Law for Company Supply Chains

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    Large companies operating in the European Union could be held responsible for environmental violations or human rights abuses committed by businesses in their supply chains under a law proposed on Wednesday by the European Commission, the bloc’s administrative arm.“We can no longer turn a blind eye on what happens down our value chains,” said Didier Reynders, the European Union’s commissioner for justice.Under the legislation, known as a due diligence law, businesses would need to establish regulations to detect, prevent and mitigate breaches of human rights, such as child labor, as well as environmental hazards in their supply chains. National governments would define the financial penalties for companies violating the rules.Victims could sue for compensation in domestic courts of E.U. member nations, even if the harm occurred outside the bloc.The commission proposed the rules after some member nations, including Germany and France, introduced different versions of due diligence law at the national level.The legislation will now be discussed by the European Parliament and the 27 national governments, with all parties able to modify the language. The final draft will require passage by the E.U. lawmakers and member nations. The whole process could take a year or more.The proposal would initially apply to companies with more than 500 employees and annual revenue over 150 million euros (about $170 million), a group that includes about 10,000 E.U. businesses, about 1 percent of the total. Around 2,000 companies based outside the bloc but doing business in the European Union, amounting to an annual revenue of more than €150 million, would also be covered. After two years, the range would be expanded to include smaller businesses in so-called high-impact sectors, such as textiles, food products and mining.Businesses expressed concern over the proposal.“It is unrealistic to expect that European companies can control their entire value chains across the world,” said Pierre Gattaz, president of BusinessEurope, a trade organization. “Ultimately these proposals will harm our companies’ ability to remain competitive worldwide.”But Richard Gardiner of Global Witness said the legislation had the potential to become “a watershed moment for human rights and the climate crisis,” if the European Union resisted efforts to water down the proposed measures.“We’ve been investigating big corporations for decades, and when we reveal the harm they’re causing to people and planet, the response is invariably the same: ‘We weren’t aware,’” Mr. Gardiner said. “Today’s proposal from the commission may make that response illegal.”But some analysts remained skeptical, pointing out that the commission’s final proposal, which was delayed several times, is much less ambitious than what was initially planned.“This outcome is the result of an unprecedented level of corporate lobbying,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law at the business school HEC Paris. He said the final result “was downgraded into yet another narrow piece of tick-the-boxes compliance law.”Julia Linares Sabater, a senior officer at the WWF European Policy Office, said the businesses affected “represent a drop in the ocean of the E.U.’s total economy.”“The E.U. needs to be far more ambitious to successfully tackle the climate and biodiversity crises,” she added. More

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    Russian Conflict in Ukraine is Reshaping the Climate Debate

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    Energy security has gained prominence while the conflict in Ukraine raises concerns over the possible interruption in the supply of oil and natural gas.It was only three months ago that world leaders met at the Glasgow climate summit and made ambitious pledges to reduce fossil fuel use. The perils of a warming planet are no less calamitous now, but the debate about the critically important transition to renewable energy has taken a back seat to energy security as Russia — Europe’s largest energy supplier — threatens to start a major confrontation with the West over Ukraine while oil prices are climbing toward $100 a barrel.For more than a decade, policy discussions in Europe and beyond about cutting back on gas, oil and coal emphasized safety and the environment, at the expense of financial and economic considerations, said Lucia van Geuns, a strategic energy adviser at the Hague Center for Strategic Studies. Now, it’s the reverse.“Gas prices became very high, and all of a sudden security of supply and price became the main subject of public debate,” she said.The renewed emphasis on energy independence and national security may encourage policymakers to backslide on efforts to decrease the use of fossil fuels that pump deadly greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.Already, skyrocketing prices have spurred additional production and consumption of fuels that contribute to global warming. Coal imports to the European Union in January rose more than 56 percent from the previous year.In Britain, the Coal Authority gave a mine in Wales permission last month to increase output by 40 million tons over the next two decades. In Australia, there are plans to open or expand more coking coal mines. And China, which has traditionally made energy security a priority, has further stepped up its coal production and approved three new billion-dollar coal mines this week.“Get your rig count up,” Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. energy secretary, said in December, urging American oil producers to raise their output. Shale companies in Oklahoma, Colorado and other states are looking to resurrect drilling that had ceased because there is suddenly money to be made. And this month, Exxon Mobil announced plans to increase spending on new oil wells and other projects.A coal-fired power station in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, in January.Martin Meissner/Associated PressIan Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at the University of Oxford, warned that high energy prices could lead to more exploration of traditional fossil fuels. “Governments will want to deprioritize renewables and sustainables, which would be exactly the wrong response,” he said.Europe’s transition to sustainable energy has always been an intricate calculus, requiring it to back away from the dirtiest fossil fuel like coal, while still working with gas and oil producers to power homes, cars and factories until better alternatives are available.For Germany, dependency on Russian gas has been an integral part of its environmental blueprint for many years. Plans for the first direct pipeline between the two countries, Nord Stream 1, started in 1997. A leader in the push to reduce carbon emissions, Berlin has moved to shutter coal mines and nuclear power plants, after the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. The idea was that Russian gas would supply the needed fuel during the yearslong transition to cleaner energy sources. Two-thirds of the gas Germany burned last year came from Russia.Future plans called for even more gas to be delivered through Nord Stream 2, a new 746-mile pipeline under the Baltic Sea that directly links Russia to northeastern Germany.On Tuesday, after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia recognized two breakaway republics in Ukraine and mobilized forces, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany halted final regulatory review of the $11 billion pipeline, which was completed last year.The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was set to deliver Russian gas to Lubmin, Germany.Stefan Sauer/picture alliance via Getty Images“I don’t think the threat from Russia is outweighing the threat of climate change, and I don’t see coal mines opening up across Europe,” said James Nixey, director of the Russia-Eurasia program at Chatham House, a research organization in London.Certainly, the path of energy transition has never been clear. Five climate summits have taken place over the past 30 years, and progress has always fallen short. This latest setback may just be the latest in a long series of halfway measures and setbacks.Still, without a more comprehensive strategy to wean itself off gas, Europe won’t be able to accomplish its goal of reducing emissions 55 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, or to reach the Glasgow summit’s target of cutting net greenhouse gases to zero by 2050.As Mr. Nixey acknowledged, “this debate is changing” as leaders are forced to acknowledge the downsides of dependency on Russian energy.Even in Germany, where the progressive Greens have gained a more influential voice in the government, there has been a shift in tone.This month, Robert Habeck, Germany’s new minister for the economy and climate change and a member of the Greens, said events had underscored the need to diversify supplies. “We need to act here and secure ourselves better,” he said. “If we don’t, we will become a pawn in the game.”Energy prices started to climb before Mr. Putin began massing troops on Ukraine’s eastern border, as countries emerged from pandemic closures and demand shot up.But as Mr. Putin moved aggressively against Ukraine and energy prices soared further, the political and strategic vulnerabilities presented by Russia’s control of so much of Europe’s supply took center stage.“Europe is quite dependent on Russian gas and oil, and this is unsustainable,” said Sarah E. Mendelson, the head of Heinz College in Washington. She added that the United States and its European allies had not focused enough on energy independence in recent years.Overall, Europe gets more than a third of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia. Deliveries have slowed significantly in recent months, while reserves in Europe have fallen to just 31 percent of capacity.Mateusz Garus, a blacksmith at a coal mine in Poland. “We will destroy the power sector,” he said, “and we will be dependent on others like Russia.”Maciek Nabrdalik for The New York TimesFor critics of the European Union’s climate policies, the sudden focus away from greenhouse gas emissions and on existing fuel reserves is validating.Arkadiusz Siekaniec, vice president of the Trade Union of Miners in Poland, has long argued that the European Union’s push to end coal production on the continent was folly. But now he hopes that others may come around to his point of view.The climate policy “is a suicidal mission” that could leave the entire region overly dependent on Russian fuel, Mr. Siekaniec said last week as American troops landed in his country. “It threatens the economy as well as the citizens of Europe and Poland.”For Mateusz Garus, a blacksmith at Jankowice, a coal mine in Upper Silesia, the heart of coal country, politics and not climate change are driving policy. “We will destroy the power sector,” he said, “and we will be dependent on others like Russia.” More

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    What’s at Stake for the Global Economy as Conflict Looms in Ukraine

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    Countries that depend on the region’s rich supply of energy, wheat, nickel and other staples could feel the pain of price spikes.After getting battered by the pandemic, supply chain chokeholds and leaps in prices, the global economy is poised to be sent on yet another unpredictable course by an armed clash on Europe’s border.Even before the Kremlin ordered Russian troops into separatist territories of Ukraine on Monday, the tension had taken a toll. The promise of punishing sanctions in return by President Biden and the potential for Russian retaliation had already pushed down stock returns and driven up gas prices.An outright attack by Russian troops could cause dizzying spikes in energy and food prices, fuel inflation fears and spook investors, a combination that threatens investment and growth in economies around the world.However harsh the effects, the immediate impact will be nowhere near as devastating as the sudden economic shutdowns first caused by the coronavirus in 2020. Russia is a transcontinental behemoth with 146 million people and a huge nuclear arsenal, as well as a key supplier of the oil, gas and raw materials that keep the world’s factories running. But unlike China, which is a manufacturing powerhouse and intimately woven into intricate supply chains, Russia is a minor player in the global economy.Italy, with half the people and fewer natural resources, has an economy that is twice the size. Poland exports more goods to the European Union than Russia.“Russia is incredibly unimportant in the global economy except for oil and gas,” said Jason Furman, a Harvard economist who was an adviser to President Barack Obama. “It’s basically a big gas station.”An underground gas storage facility in Kasimov, east of Moscow. Russia supplies nearly 40 percent of Europe’s natural gas.Andrey Rudakov/BloombergOf course, a closed gas station can be crippling for those who depend on it. The result is that any economic damage will be unevenly spread, intense in some countries and industries and unnoticed in others.Europe gets nearly 40 percent of its natural gas and 25 percent of its oil from Russia, and is likely to be walloped with spikes in heating and gas bills, which are already soaring. Natural gas reserves are at less than a third of capacity, with weeks of cold weather ahead, and European leaders have already accused Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, of reducing supplies to gain a political edge.And then there are food prices, which have climbed to their highest level in more than a decade largely because of the pandemic’s supply chain mess, according to a recent United Nations report. Russia is the world’s largest supplier of wheat, and together with Ukraine, accounts for nearly a quarter of total global exports. For some countries, the dependence is much greater. That flow of grain makes up more than 70 percent of Egypt and Turkey’s total wheat imports.This will put further strain on Turkey, which is already in the middle of an economic crisis and struggling with inflation that is running close to 50 percent, with skyrocketing food, fuel and electricity prices.And as usual, the burden falls heaviest on the most vulnerable. “Poorer people spend a higher share of incomes on food and heating,” said Ian Goldin, a professor of globalization and development at Oxford University.Ukraine, long known as the “breadbasket of Europe,” actually sends more than 40 percent of its wheat and corn exports to the Middle East or Africa, where there are worries that further food shortages and price increases could stoke social unrest.Lebanon, for example, which is experiencing one of the most devastating economic crises in more than a century, gets more than half of its wheat from Ukraine, which is also the world’s largest exporter of seed oils like sunflower and rapeseed.On Monday, the White House responded to Mr. Putin’s decision to recognize the independence of two Russian-backed territories in the country’s east by saying it would begin imposing limited sanctions on the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Biden would soon issue an executive order prohibiting investment, trade and financing with people in those regions.Analysts watching the unfolding conflict have mapped out a range of scenarios from mild to severe. The fallout on working-class families and Wall Street traders depends on how an invasion plays out: whether Russian troops stay near the border or attack the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv; whether the fighting lasts for days or months; what kind of Western sanctions are imposed; and whether Mr. Putin responds by withholding critical gas supplies from Europe or launching insidious cyberattacks.“Think about it rolling out in stages,” said Julia Friedlander, director of the economic statecraft initiative at the Atlantic Council. “This is likely to play out as a slow motion drama.”As became clear from the pandemic, minor interruptions in one region can generate major disruptions far away. Isolated shortages and price surges— whether of gas, wheat, aluminum or nickel — can snowball in a world still struggling to recover from the pandemic.“You have to look at the backdrop against which this is coming,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist for EY-Parthenon. “There is high inflation, strained supply chains and uncertainty about what central banks are going to do and how insistent price rises are.”Ukraine’s port of Mykolaiv. The Middle East and Africa are especially reliant on Ukraine’s exports of wheat and corn.  Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesThe additional stresses may be relatively small in isolation, but they are piling on economies that are still recovering from the economic body blows inflicted by the pandemic.What’s also clear, Mr. Daco added, is that “political uncertainty and volatility weigh on economic activity.”That means an invasion could have a dual effect — slowing economic activity and raising prices.In the United States, the Federal Reserve is already confronting the highest inflation in 40 years, at 7.5 percent in January, and is expected to start raising interest rates next month. Higher energy prices set off by a conflict in Europe may be transitory but they could feed worries about a wage-price spiral.“We could see a new burst of inflation,” said Christopher Miller, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an assistant professor at Tufts University.Also fueling inflation fears are possible shortages of essential metals like palladium, aluminum and nickel, creating another disruption to global supply chains already suffering from the pandemic, trucker blockades in Canada and shortages of semiconductors.The price of palladium, for example, used in automotive exhaust systems, mobile phones and even dental fillings, has soared in recent weeks because of fears that Russia, the world’s largest exporter of the metal, could be cut off from global markets. The price of nickel, used to make steel and electric car batteries, has also been jumping.It’s too early to gauge the precise impact of an armed conflict, said Lars Stenqvist, the chief technology officer of Volvo, the Swedish truck maker. But he added, “It is a very, very serious thing.”“We have a number of scenarios on the table and we are following the developments of the situation day by day,” Mr. Stenqvist said Monday.The West has taken steps to blunt the impact on Europe if Mr. Putin decides to retaliate. The United States has ramped up delivery of liquefied natural gas and asked other suppliers like Qatar to do the same.A front line position in Luhansk Oblast, in eastern Ukraine, a scene of mortar attacks. “This is likely to play out as a slow motion drama,” said one analyst.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesThe demand for oil might add momentum to negotiations to revive a deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program. Iran, which is estimated to have as many as 80 million barrels of oil in storage, has been locked out of much of the world’s markets since 2018, when President Donald J. Trump withdrew from the nuclear accord and reimposed sanctions.Some of the sanctions against Russia that the Biden administration is considering, such as cutting off access to the system of international payments known as SWIFT or blocking companies from selling anything to Russia that contains American-made components, would hurt anyone who does business with Russia. But across the board, the United States is much less vulnerable than the European Union, which is Russia’s largest trading partner.Americans, as Mr. Biden has already warned, are likely to see higher gasoline prices. But because the United States is itself a large producer of natural gas, those price increases are not nearly as steep and as broad as elsewhere. And Europe has many more links to Russia and engages in more financial transactions — including paying for the Russian gas.Oil companies like Shell and Total have joint ventures in Russia, while BP boasts that it “is one of the biggest foreign investors in Europe,” with ties to the Russian oil company Rosneft. Airbus, the European aviation giant, gets titanium from Russia. And European banks, particularly those in Germany, France and Italy, have lent billions of dollars to Russian borrowers.“Severe sanctions that hurt Russia painfully and comprehensively have potential to do huge damage to European customers,” said Adam Tooze, director of the European Institute at Columbia University.Depending on what happens, the most significant effects on the global economy may manifest themselves only over the long run.One result would be to push Russia to have closer economic ties to China. The two nations recently negotiated a 30-year contract for Russia to supply gas to China through a new pipeline.“Russia is likely to pivot all energy and commodity exports to China,” said Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.The crisis is also contributing to a reassessment of the global economy’s structure and concerns about self-sufficiency. The pandemic has already highlighted the downsides of far-flung supply chains that rely on lean production.Now Europe’s dependence on Russian gas is spurring discussions about expanding energy sources, which could further sideline Russia’s presence in the global economy.“In the longer term, it’s going to push Europe to diversify,” said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow working on international trade policy at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. As for Russia, the real cost “would be corrosive over time and really making it much more difficult to do business with Russian entities and deterring investment.” More

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    European Steel Plan Shows Biden’s Bid to Merge Climate and Trade Policy

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    A potential agreement on steel trade provides the clearest look yet at how the Biden administration plans to implement a trade policy that is both protectionist and progressiveWASHINGTON — President Biden has promised to use trade policy as a tool to mitigate climate change. This weekend, the administration provided its first look at how it plans to mesh those policy goals, saying the United States and the European Union would try to curb carbon emissions as part of a trade deal covering steel and aluminum.The arrangement, which American and European leaders aim to introduce by 2024, would use tariffs or other tools to encourage the production and trade of metals made with fewer carbon emissions in places including the United States and European Union, and block dirtier steel and aluminum produced in countries including China.If finalized, it would be the first time a U.S. trade agreement includes specific targets on carbon emissions, said Ben Beachy, the director of the Sierra Club’s Living Economy program.“No U.S. trade deal to date has even mentioned climate change, much less included binding climate standards,” said Mr. Beachy.The announcement was short on details, and negotiations with European leaders are likely to face multiple roadblocks. But it provided an outline for how the Biden administration hopes to knit together its concerns about trade and climate and work with allies to take on a recalcitrant China, at a time when progress on multicountry trade negotiations at the World Trade Organization has stalled.“The U.S. leads the world in our clean steel technology,” Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, said in an interview on Monday. She said the United States would work with allies “to preference cleaner steel, which will create an incentive to make more investments in technology,” resulting in fewer carbon emissions and more jobs.In the same interview, Katherine Tai, the United States Trade Representative, said the potential agreement would restrict market access for countries that don’t meet certain carbon standards, or that engage in nonmarket practices and contribute to global overcapacity in the steel sector — accusations that are often levied at China.The effort would seek to build “a global arrangement that promotes not just fair trade in steel but also pro-climate and responsible trade in steel,” Ms. Tai said.Kevin Dempsey, the president of the American Iron and Steel Institute, said at an industry forum in Washington on Tuesday that the arrangement would be “positive for the U.S. industry,” which has the lowest carbon intensity per ton of steel of the major steel-producing countries.China accounts for nearly 60 percent of global steel production. Its use of a common steel-production method causes more than twice as much climate pollution as does the same technology in the United States, according to estimates by Global Efficiency Intelligence.In its announcement on Saturday, the Biden administration also said it had reached a deal to ease the tariffs that former President Donald J. Trump had imposed on European metals while the governments work toward the carbon accord.The United States would replace the 25 percent tariff on European steel and a 10 percent tariff on European aluminum with a so-called tariff-rate quota. In return, the European Union would drop the retaliatory tariffs it imposed on other American products, like bourbon and motorcycles.Under the new terms, 3.3 million metric tons of European steel would be allowed to enter the United States duty-free each year, with any steel above that volume subject to a 25 percent tariff.European producers would be allowed to ship 18,000 metric tons of unwrought aluminum, which often comes in the form of ingots, and 366,000 metric tons of wrought or semifinished aluminum into the United States each year, while volumes above that would be charged a 10 percent tariff, the commerce department said.To qualify for zero tariffs, the steel must be entirely made in the European Union — a provision designed to keep cheaper steel from countries including China and Russia from finding a backdoor into the United States via Europe.Supporters of free trade have criticized the Biden administration for relying on the same protectionist trade measures used by the Trump administration, which deployed both tariffs and quotas to protect domestic metal makers.Jake Colvin, the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said the announcement would ratchet down trade tensions between the United States and Europe. But he called the trade barriers “an unwelcome form of managed trade” that would add costs and undermine American competitiveness.Ms. Tai said the administration had made a deliberate choice not to heed calls “for the president to just undo everything that the Trump administration had done on trade.”Mr. Biden’s plan, she said, “is that we formulate a worker-centered trade policy. And that means not actually going back to the way things were in 2015 and 2016, challenging us to do trade in a different way from how we’ve done it earlier, but also, critically, to challenge us to do trade in a way different from how the Trump administration did.”A factory in southern China that makes steel parts. The trade proposal would block dirtier steel and aluminum produced in countries including China.The New York TimesThe focus on carbon emissions differs from that of the Trump administration, which rejected any attempts to negotiate on carbon mitigation and withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change.But negotiations with Europe will face challenges, among them developing a common methodology for measuring how much carbon is emitted as certain products are made. Still, the announcement suggests that the United States and Europe might be ready to work toward a collaborative approach on lowering carbon emissions, despite past differences on how the problem should be addressed.European leaders have long advocated an explicit price on the carbon dioxide that companies emit while making their products. In July, the European Union proposed a carbon border adjustment mechanism that would require companies to pay for carbon emissions produced outside Europe, to discourage manufacturers from evading Europe’s restrictions on pollution by moving abroad.An explicit tax on carbon has met with more resistance in the United States, where some politicians want to update regulatory requirements or put the onus on companies to invest in cleaner production technology.Todd Tucker, the director of governance studies at the Roosevelt Institute, said the latest announcement suggested that the European Union may be “a little bit more flexible” on how the United States and other partners would go about lowering emissions. Mr. Biden’s reconciliation bill, for example, contains a proposal for a “green bank” that could provide financing for firms to transition to cleaner technologies, he said.“If the U.S. ends up achieving decarbonization through more of an investments and industrial-policy approach, it seems like they’re OK with that,” Mr. Tucker said.Though the earliest negotiations over carbon emissions in the steel sector involve the European Union, the Biden administration says it wants to quickly extend the partnership to other countries.In twin announcements on Sunday, the Department of Commerce said it had begun close consultations with Japan and the United Kingdom “on bilateral and multilateral issues related to steel and aluminum,” with a focus on “the need for like-minded countries to take collective action.”Both Japan and the United Kingdom still face a 25 percent tariff on steel exports to the United States imposed by Mr. Trump.The talks suggest a template for how the Biden administration will try to engage allies to counter China’s growing economic heft and make progress on goals like climate and workers rights.The administration has rejected Mr. Trump’s “America First” approach to trade, saying the United States needs to work with like-minded countries. But they have also acknowledged that the inefficiency of negotiations at the World Trade Organization, and distanced themselves from broader, multicountry trade deals, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.The announcements suggest that the Biden administration may not see comprehensive trade deals as the most effective way to accomplish many of its goals, but rather, industry-specific agreements among a limited number of democratic, free-market countries. That approach is similar to the cooperation the United States announced with the European Union for the civil aircraft industry in June.Ms. Raimondo said the agreement to ease the tariffs on the European Union was a “very significant achievement” that would help to alleviate supply chain problems and lower prices for companies that use steel and aluminum to make other products.“It’s all kind of a table setter to a global arrangement, whereby we work with our allies all over the world over the next couple of years,” she said. More

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    U.K. Braces for a Difficult Holiday Season Due to Shortages

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    Military personnel are driving transport trucks. Pig farmers may start culling their stock. Even the government says shortages will affect Christmas, as Britons brace for a challenging winter.BUNGAY, England — To understand the deep sense of anxiety Britons feel about the supply shortages currently afflicting the nation — and threatening disruptions to the Christmas dinner table — one need only travel to Simon Watchorn’s pig farm, about two hours northeast of London.In 2014, Mr. Watchorn was England’s pig farmer of the year, with a thriving business. But this year, he said, the outlook for the fall is bleak.Slaughterhouses are understaffed and are processing a smaller-than-usual number of pigs. There is a shortage of drivers to move pork to grocery stores and butcher shops. And there are fewer butchers to prepare the meat for consumers.If the problems persist, Mr. Watchorn may have to start culling some of his 7,500 pigs by the end of next month. Pigs grow about 15 pounds each week, and after a certain point, they are too big for slaughterhouses to process.Mr. Watchorn said the last time he can remember things being this bad was during an outbreak of mad cow disease in the late 1990s. “It’s a muddle,” he said. “It’s worse than a muddle, it’s a disaster, and I don’t know when it’s going to finish.”Mr. Watchorn, 66, is one of many producers of food and other goods warning of a daunting winter ahead for Britons. Shortages continued to bedevil the British economy on Monday as gas stations in London and in southeastern England reported trouble getting fuel, and the government began deploying military personnel to help ease the lack of drivers. Supermarket consortiums say pressures from rising transport costs, labor shortages and commodity costs are already pushing prices higher and will likely continue to do so.The chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, acknowledged on BBC Radio on Monday that there will shortages at Christmastime. He said the government was doing “everything we can” to mitigate the supply chain issues but admitted there was no “magic wand.”Mr. Watchorn, whose farm is near the town of Bungay, England, northeast of London, is convinced that Brexit is responsible for the current distress.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesMr. Watchorn, who prides himself on running a farm where all adult stock live outside, is convinced that Brexit is responsible for the current distress, saying the exodus of European workers from Britain had led to damaging labor shortages. The British people voted to break with the European Union to reduce immigration, he believes, without realizing how damaging a cliff-edge exit from the bloc would be for businesses.“They didn’t vote for supermarket shortages,” he said on Sunday as dozens of pigs gathered around him to be fed. “They didn’t understand that was going to be a probable, likely outcome.”Mr. Sunak and other Conservative leaders say supply problems are a global issue largely attributable to the pandemic and not limited to Britain. Indeed, businesses around the world are facing rising energy prices, product shortages and labor shortages.But the challenges in Britain are acute, with many industries facing a shortage of workers — in part because of the pandemic, but also, many business owners say, because of stricter immigration laws that came into effect after Britain’s exit from the European Union on Jan. 1.“We are desperately trying to find workers,” said Jon Hare, a spokesman for the British Meat Processors Association, which estimates that Britain is short of about 25,000 butchers and processing plant workers.He called on the government to issue more short-term visas to foreign workers to help the industry with the transition outside of the European Union. “There are only so many people you can take out of the production system before the system starts breaking down,” he said.A shopper confronted sparse food shelves in a Co-op supermarket in Harpenden, England, in September.Peter Cziborra/ReutersThe specter of disruptions to the holiday season is particularly resonant in Britain, where Christmas isn’t Christmas without traditional foods. And yet British meat producers say the dinner table could be lacking some of the seasonal specialties that people count on every December. That includes pigs in a blanket (bacon-wrapped sausages that are different from the American version), glazed ham and Yorkshire pudding, which require additional labor to prepare, Mr. Hare said.The National Pig Association has warned that about 120,000 pigs are backed up on farms because of a lack of slaughterhouse workers, and the British Poultry Council said it expected to cut Christmas turkey production by 20 percent. On Monday, protesters gathered outside of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester with signs that said “All we want for Christmas is our pigs in a blanket” and “#saveourbacon.”Consumers are already anticipating shortages. One farmer in Leeds said that by last month, customers had already ordered all 3,500 turkeys she was raising for Christmas — a first.A lack of truck drivers has also caused sporadic shortages for staples including eggs, milk and baked goods. One in six people in Britain said that in recent weeks they had not been able to buy certain essential food items because they were unavailable, according to a report by the Office for National Statistics, which surveyed about 3,500 households.Some consumers interviewed in recent days said they had not had any trouble finding what they wanted at grocery stores. But Meriem Mahdhi, 22, who moved from Italy to Colchester in southeast England last month to attend college, said she had struggled to find essential items at her local grocery store, Tesco, Britain’s largest supermarket chain.“All the dried foods like pasta, canned fruit, it’s all gone, every day,” she said. Tesco did not respond to a request for comment.Seeking a quick fix, 200 military personnel in fatigues on Monday arrived at refineries to help deliver fuel to gas stations. About half of them drove civilian vehicles and the others provided logistical support. “As an extra precaution we have put the extra drivers on,” Mr. Sunak said.Over the weekend, the government said it had extended thousands of temporary visas for foreign workers to work in Britain until the first few months of next year. But economists said the temporary visas were unlikely to be enough to make much of a difference, since there are shortages at every link in the supply chain.“There is a lack of workers coming in, and British people are not willing to do the job,” said Robert Elliott, a professor at the University of Birmingham. He said it was difficult to say how much of the supply-chain issues were a result of Brexit versus the pandemic, but regardless, the government has chosen policies that have not made the situation better.The government has underinvested in training workers to drive trucks, he said, and too few young people are pursuing the profession to replace ones who have retired.Even before Brexit, the meat industry had difficulties attracting workers because of the hard work, low pay and remote locations of processing plants. Producers have raised wages for butchers by an average of 10 percent this year, the British Meat Processors Association said, but shortages are still so severe that members of the British Poultry Council reported they had cut weekly chicken production by five to 10 percent.Mr. Watchorn said the situation was “a disaster, and I don’t know when it’s going to finish.”Andrew Testa for The New York TimesJames MacGregor, the general manager at Riverford, an organic food company based in Devon, England, said he was short of about 40 workers, or about 16 percent of the company. Butchers have been particularly hard to find, he said. To cope with the shortages, Riverford will likely offer fewer products for sale around Christmas.“It feels like we’re staring down the barrel of a gun a little bit at the moment,” Mr. MacGregor said. “It’s highly likely if we don’t see movement in terms of fuel and labor, we will ultimately end up passing some of this cost on to the consumer.”Kathy Martyn, the owner of Oakfield Farm in East Sussex, which has about 100 pigs, said she was relieved to find fuel on Friday, just in time to make it to a catering job for a wedding over the weekend. She said that fuel shortages have made planning difficult, and that she may have to cull about 20 of her pigs this year.“We’ll just roll up our sleeves and take a deep breath,” Ms. Martyn said.Mr. Watchorn, the pig farmer, said his farm will be losing money this year. Even culling pigs is costly. If it comes to that, he would have to find someone to slaughter the animals and then take them away. Financial help from the government to do that would help, but he said he was not counting on it. “When pigs fly,” he quipped.Mr. Watchorn said the last time he can remember things being this bad was during an outbreak of mad cow disease in the 1990s.Andrew Testa for The New York TimesAina J. Khan More