[lmm]

Nah, the brakes have definitely been thrown on over the last few years. The US has had back-and-forth with China and Canada, e.g. the huge tariff on that Embraer plane, export restrictions on computer chips, and I think the steel tariff dispute is still simmering away. The UK has pulled out of the EFTA and that's affected supply chains a lot. China has cut off the workarounds that allowed offshore ownership of stock in their companies, a whole lot of what was tolerated in Hong Kong is not being tolerated any more. And that's before you get into the Russia situation - cutting off SWIFT is pretty much unprecedented, and the oil price cap stuff is also new. Global trade is very much less free than a decade or two ago, and that trend is accelerating.

[ponector]

Russia is not fully cut from western financial system. Even few EU banks are there.

Price cap is poorly enforced. All economic sanctions applied to Russia are poorly enforced thanks to globalization and lack of political will of western countries.

Sanctions are severe on paper, but in real life just adds some extra friction.

Unfortunately we are living in times when there are only weak populists in the government.

I wish the next is president will be someone like Reagan, but it is impossible.