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Sergey Lavrov: [...] There are Russian entrepreneurs who are interested in using legal methods at various judicial instances which will recognise the sanctions as illegal. There are those who are willing to strike a deal with the US justice system.

We are not alone here. This practice was used long before the relations between Russia and the United States deteriorated under President Obama. BNP Paribas was fined $12 billion for trading with Iran without violating any laws of its country or international rules. It’s just that the Americans deemed it wrong, since they had declared sanctions on Iran. They beat the price down from $12 billion to $9 billion. There are similar examples with regard to German businesses.

If we talk about this more comprehensively, it becomes clear that now that the US dollar is used in a vast share of global economic relations and financial settlements, the majority of non-US companies are forced to make compromises. They are not interested in losing a portion of their businesses overnight. The governments of their respective countries are forced to take this into account and try to negotiate with the Americans in order to create a political framework for resolving the current fleeting issues caused by the US economic aggression – let’s call things by their proper names.

In the long run, the thinking process has already started with regard to how to get rid of the US dollar and create a system that will not be dependent on the whims of a particular US administration, or its behaviour in international economic relations, or turn into a tool of domestic political strife in the United States.

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