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Daily Caller

Russia Has Mostly Managed To Dodge One Of Biden’s Key Energy Sanctions

Published

6 months ago

3 minute read

From the Daily Caller News Foundation 

 

By Nick Pope

 

Russia is dodging a U.S.-led sanction meant to limit its energy revenues by using a fleet of “shadow tankers” to sell oil at higher prices, according to The New York Times.

Led by the U.S., Western countries imposed a $60 per-barrel price cap on Russian oil after the Ukraine war started in February 2022, a policy proponents claimed would severely limit Russia’s ability to generate oil cash while falling sort of imposing onerous costs on developing countries. However, Russia has managed to sell about 70% of its oil sales above the West’s price by utilizing a fleet of “shadow tankers” — vessels that are unregistered or registered in nations that are not party to the price cap agreement — to dodge the restrictions, the NYT reported, citing a new report by the Kyiv School of Economics Institute.

In the first half of 2024, Russia managed to sell about 75 million barrels of oil each month using vessels with an average age of 18 years, according to the NYT. Russia spent about $10 billion to develop its “shadow tanker” fleet.

Moreover, ships that are a part of the Russian “shadow tanker” fleet or that are subject to sanctions for breaking the price cap carried a record amount of oil and related products in September, according to the NYT. Some of these vessels made deliveries to ports in China and India, buyers that have purchased considerable amounts of Russian oil despite the Western sanctions against Putin’s economy.

Some officials inside the Biden-Harris administration want to see the government take a harder line against the “shadow tanker” fleet to continue to squeeze Putin, but others are in favor of treading lightly out of concern that cracking down could put upward prices on energy prices with a pivotal presidential election looming, according to the NYT. More broadly, policymakers have been especially careful in how they’ve handled Russia’s energy industry given the risks of a hot war between Iran and Israel, which would likely drive prices up.

While the U.S. and allies will continue working on enforcement, Russia is still selling oil at suboptimal prices and spending billions on its “shadow tanker” fleet, meaning that the sanction is still a success even if it is being evaded to some degree, one U.S. official who requested anonymity to speak freely on the subject told the NYT.

The White House and the Department of the Treasury did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

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2025 Federal Election

‘I’m Cautiously Optimistic’: Doug Ford Strongly Recommends Canada ‘Not To Retaliate’ Against Trump’s Tariffs

Published on April 2, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Cohen

Ontario Premier Doug Ford urged Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to avoid retaliation against the tariffs President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday.

Trump announced in the White House Rose Garden that he would impose “a minimum baseline tariff of 10%” on all goods entering the United States, with Canada not being included on the list of countries with higher rates. When asked about what Canada’s response would be on “Bloomberg: Balance of Power,” Ford said he was “cautiously optimistic” about Canada’s omission from the higher-tier tariffs and emphasized the importance of a cooperative relationship with the U.S.

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“Well, let’s see where these tariffs go. I’m cautiously optimistic that I never saw Canada or Mexico on that list. And it just goes to show you two great countries working together, collaborating together and building relationships,” Ford said. “So again, I’m cautiously optimistic. I think if that’s the case, it’s the right thing for both the U.S and Canada.”

Host Kailey Leinz noted that there are currently tariffs on Canada in place as well as an exemption for goods that are in compliance with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).

“Does that mean, sir, at least in your mind, that it wouldn’t be appropriate for Canada to retaliate for this at this time?” Leinz asked.

“That is correct. If that’s the case, then I would highly recommend to the prime minister not to retaliate. And let’s carry on a strong relationship,” Ford answered. “Let’s build the American-Canadian fortress around both countries and be the wealthiest, most prosperous, safest two countries in the world.”

Trump declared a national emergency to levy a slew of reciprocal tariffs on what he has deemed “Liberation Day.”

“My fellow Americans, this is Liberation Day, April 2, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” Trump said.

The president also announced that he would proceed with implementing a 25% tariff on “all foreign-made automobiles” that will take effect at midnight.

Ford in March had imposed a 25% surcharge on electricity to New York, Michigan and Minnesota, but promptly rescinded the policy and apologized to Americans on WABC’s “Cats & Cosby” radio show the following day. The tariffs were a retaliatory measure against Trump’s flurry of tariffs against Canada since starting his second term.

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Daily Caller

Biden Administration Was Secretly More Involved In Ukraine Than It Let On, Investigation Reveals

Published on March 31, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Wallace White

The U.S was far more directly involved in aiding Ukrainian forces against Russia than previously understood, a New York Times investigation revealed Monday.

American backing of Ukraine was an instrumental piece in forces of the eastern European nation wounding or killing more than 700,000 Russian soldiers during the course of the war, according to the NYT. Methods the U.S. used to aid Ukraine included giving target information while officially obfuscating their nature, dispatching American advisers close to the frontlines and sweeping oversight over its use of missile systems granted by officials.

One European intelligence official was taken aback as to how deep U.S. involvement was, telling the NYT that American officials had become “part of the kill chain.”

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Ukrainian officials met in Wiesbaden in Spring 2022, the headquarters of the U.S. European Command, to discuss strategy with U.S. forces and the extent to which the U.S. would aid the Ukrainians.

During the meeting, U.S. European Command settled with Ukrainian officials that they would reportedly dispense target locations as “points of interest” to the Ukrainians, not officially calling them “targets” as they believed the language would be too “provocative.”

“If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” a U.S. official told the NYT. Most artillery strikes were carried out with the M777 Howitzer system, in part provided by the U.S.

Due to diplomatic risks, the Biden administration wanted to share intel in the most plausibly deniable way possible, with a total restriction on sharing the whereabouts of Russian military figures and targets on Russian soil, one senior U.S. official told the NYT. The information shared would have to adhere to NATO guidelines of intel sharing to not provoke the Russian’s ire against other nations in the alliance.

“Imagine how that would be for us if we knew that the Russians helped some other country assassinate our chairman,” the official told the NYT. “Like, we’d go to war.”

European Command also had sweeping oversight of the Ukrainian use of the HIMARS missile system, the Americans retaining the ability to shut off the activation key cards required to fire the missiles, according to the NYT. HIMARS strikes regularly resulted in hundreds of Russian deaths weekly.

Advisers regularly made visits to the frontlines of the war, referred to as “subject matter experts” in their official capacity, according to the NYT. Their official names only changed back to “advisers” once Ukrainian leadership changed, which was also followed by a threefold increase in advisers.

Despite the deep cooperation, there was often tension between the U.S. and Ukraine, with Kiev often accusing the Americans of being overbearing, while the Americans questioned why sometimes Ukrainians did not heed their advice, according to the NYT.

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