LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters) – The United States has extended its punitive economic measures against Russia into the metals and mining sector. Aluminium will be hardest hit with penal tariffs of 200% on imports of Russian metal, effective March 10, and imports of any third-country product containing Russian metal, effective April 10.
Import tariffs on other metals such as copper and lead will double to 70% and nickel will be subject to a 35% duty. The full package of sanctions and trade measures, announced on the anniversary of Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, covers over 100 metals, minerals and chemicals.
The immediate market reaction has been muted. The duties on aluminium were widely expected and these are unilateral U.S. trade measures not formal sanctions such as were briefly imposed on Russian producer Rusal in 2018 with chaotic impact.
But they have forced The London Metal Exchange (LME) to suspend all Russian metal deliveries to its U.S. warehouses, signalling a further fracturing in the global market-place.
SUSPENDING DELIVERY
The LME has come under pressure to suspend all deliveries of Russian aluminium across its global warehouse network but rejected the idea in November.
For the rest of this column: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/united-states-targets-russian-aluminium-other-metals-2023-02-28/