Russia doesn’t expect sanctions to be lifted soon after Trump’s election victory — expert

CHELYABINSK, November 7. /TASS/. Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election is unlikely to lead to a rapid improvement in economic relations with Russia, President of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Alexander Shokhin told reporters.
“Donald Trump is an emotional person, a politician whose actions are not so easy to predict. And what many actually expect from him is that he will still fulfill his main promise that he will not unleash or support new wars, but will end old wars. If this is so, then gradual lifting of sanctions will start indeed and normal economic relations with those countries that we now call unfriendly will be restored,” Shokhin said.
He touched upon the formula that Russian big business follows in relation to improvement of relations with the West.
“Our formula is simple – hope for the best, but proceed from the worst. Russian businesses, including big ones, proceed from the fact that, based on past experience, sanctions are easily introduced, but are lifted very slowly. There are various reasons to maintain the sanctions pressure,” he noted.
However, Shokhin drew attention to how Western business is reacting to Trump’s victory.
“Indeed, foreign financial institutions believe that the Russian stock market is already at the bottom and it is time to invest in it: profitability will only grow there. Just today, such reports appeared from global agencies like Bloomberg,” he said.
Shokhin noted that if the special operation in Ukraine was over, the West could come up with something else to maintain the sanctions.
“We see how tough measures are being taken against Georgia. It would probably be possible to transfer the restrictions that were related to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to other grounds, like the LGBT, foreign agents, and so on,” he said.
“Therefore, of course, we can wait, but we can also actively prepare the ground for improvement of the relations,” the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs added.
He recalled that Russian business is now intensively developing relations with partners from the countries of the Asia-Pacific region, Africa, and Latin America, since these countries are growing faster economically than the European Union and North America.
“If there is no sanctions pressure, in terms supply restrictions or payment restrictions, and so on, then I think that the direction to the east and the global south will still develop at a more dynamic pace, even if relations with our European or Western partners start to improve. Well, then we must keep in mind that diversification is more profitable in any case,” Shokhin noted.