On Thursday the US Treasury Department added to its black list several individuals and companies from Russia and other countries which it believes are trying to do business with Crimea in circumvention of the US-imposed sanctions.
“I don’t think the additional sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department will have any tangible effect on trade relations between the United States and Russia,” Norberg said, adding that only a handful of new individuals and companies had been added to the black list and several banks added to the so-called “sectoral sanctions” list.
“Their banking activity with clients is not mentioned though, so it will have no direct impact on the commercial transactions of American and Russian companies working with the blacklisted banks,” Derek Norberg noted.
One real effect of the US decision is that the blacklisted organizations will not be able to borrow money in the United States.
“Well it looks like they never really counted on that, all the more so because their access to western banks had already been very limited and western banks simply refuse to loan money to Russian banks,” Norberg added.
