It is noted, in particular, that Russian investment in the US fell from $ 21.5 billion in 2013 to $ 8.3 billion in 2015, while US investment fell from $ 13.1 billion in 2013 to $ 2.95 billion in 2016, while taking into account the European divisions of American companies, this number of analysts is offered to be estimated at least three times more - for example, the study provides estimates of the American Chamber of Commerce, according to which the accumulated investments of 90 American companies in Russia by 2017 amounted to about $ 80 billion.
It is noteworthy that, in the framework of the still continuing export flow, primarily in the supply of crude oil from Russian brands (primarily Urals grade), US experts point to the continued interest of local refineries to work with such grades - in large part, that indicators of the so-called "crack spread" (that is, the difference between the cost of crude oil and refined products in the form of gasoline, diesel fuel, oils and other chemicals) for heavy types of oil equaled the cheaper Latin American varieties of oil. However, even price fluctuations in the North American market can only slow down but do not unfold the trend for the "shrinking" of direct Russian-American economic ties.
The report stresses that given the fact that securities of only three Russian companies are placed on the New York Stock Exchange, while the volume of Russia's investment in US government debt continues to decline consistently, the report's authors emphasize that the space for economic interaction between countries continues to grow stronger To be reduced and it is replaced conditionally by "pure policy".
In many ways, this is influenced by the existing structure of export-import cooperation between Russia and the United States, when the United States purchases only the raw materials of the first redistribution, and even certain high-tech spheres of cooperation (for example, reprocessing of US spent weapons-grade plutonium by the Russian nuclear industry and joint projects in space) cannot change the general negative background.
In recent years, there has been only one example of a large-scale replacement of one of the points of export - in agriculture, when Russia almost completely stopped agricultural imports from the US, which resulted from the policy of import substitution, the report stresses.
As a result, two scenarios are considered. In the first, in case of superficial and incomplete implementation of the existing sanctions legislation, the Russian economy will "gradually degrade." In the second scenario, which implies the full implementation of all sanctions measures, the introduction of new ones, the use of repression in relation to the "assets of Russian oligarchs" abroad, virtually all the remaining Russian-American economic ties will be cut off, and Moscow will follow the path of further protectionism.
There is also the least likely scenario in which "the Russian leadership will bring its foreign policy in line with the real state of the economy," reduce confrontation with the West and go on structural reforms with a weakening role of the state in the economy, a new wave of privatization and administrative and judicial reforms.
These calls, sounding from the mouths of analysts close to the State Department and the American establishment, mean that one of the vectors of pressure on the Russian political class is being drawn up ahead of the presidential elections of 2018 and scheduled precisely at the height of the electoral campaign for the publication by the US administration of specific names and restrictive measures that the authorities The US will use against representatives of the Russian business and political elite, based on the degree of its proximity to the first persons of the state.
Repeated as mantras, spells about the need for privatization and "structural reforms," which begin to sound not only from the analytical centers in Washington, but also in the Russian political field, are called upon to legitimize in the public consciousness the idea of economic and then political capitulation to the West that It is impossible without dismantling the system of state companies and in general - the return of Russia to the path of unconditional submission and the abandonment of sovereign economic policy and elements of pragmatic protectionism. The indication in the report for the period from 2018 to 2024 demonstrates the fact that it is in the post-election period that the relevant forces can be activated in Russia, already now unfolding the rhetoric of "unpopular measures" and returning to "market principles".
