, Columnist
The Smoke and Mirrors of Western Oil Sanctions
The Kremlin was bruised, while Iran and Venezuela have benefited.
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Imposing and managing economic sanctions is a game of smoke and mirrors. Nothing is what it seems, and policy often bends markets in perverse ways to achieve political aims. Nowhere is that truer than in the global oil bazaar of 2023.
US and European policymakers are trying to achieve seemingly contradictory goals: reduce the oil income of Russia, Venezuela and Iran while preventing an oil price rally.
So far this year, the sanctions regime has achieved its objective of hurting the Kremlin, halving its oil revenue from a year ago, at the unacknowledged cost of bolstering Iran and Venezuela. But the path forward is likely to get choppier, with the outcome deeply unpredictable.
