With the help of Doug Palmer, Ximena Bustillo and Sarah Anne Aarup

— National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan meets with his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi today confront the Chinese government over what the United States sees as its tacit support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

— The further fracture of the World Trade Organization caused by the Russian invasion could open the door to new commercial opportunities, such as a NATO for international trade, argue two former US trade officials.

— And whole nations are panicking by buying agricultural products as the war in Ukraine fuels fears of global price spikes.

Today is Monday, March 14. Welcome to Morning Trade. No matter who you’re backing, the best moment in the Premier League this weekend was undoubtedly when Ukraine international Andriy Yarmolenko, in his first game back from personal leave, stolen home opener against Aston Villa in West Ham’s eventual 2-1 win. There are times when football is bigger than what happens on the pitch, and seeing the striker and his teammates overwhelmed with emotion after the goal is one of those times.

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US, CHINA MEET ON UKRAINE TODAY: As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nears its third week, the Biden administration is now targeting one of Moscow’s last economic lifelines: China.

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan is in Rome today for meetings with top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi and the new ground war in Europe will be high on the agenda. The talks will include “continued efforts to manage competition between our two countries and … the impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine on regional and global security,” the National Security Council spokeswoman said. Emily Horne, in a written statement.

With or against us: Beijing has insisted it remains neutral in the face of Russia’s attack, but Washington will make it clear that it sees no common ground on the issue. The meeting will take place as China “has aligned itself with Russia to advance its own vision for the world order”, a source close to the meeting told reporters on Sunday.

Although US officials aren’t aiming for any “specific outcome,” as the source put it, Russia’s invasion raises a number of trade and economic issues between the world’s two largest economies. The United States will want Beijing to cooperate with Western efforts to hobble the Russian economy with financial and energy sanctions — or at least not actively help Moscow avoid them.

Rhetoric vs reality: Already there are indications that Chinese banks are pulling back on Russian oil and gas purchases and otherwise limiting their exposure to the economy, and Beijing’s state-backed infrastructure bank has said it will suspend its work with Russia and Belarus. But that has been offset by rhetoric from Chinese officials decrying US sanctions and insisting nations will continue to trade as normal.

Decision Points: In the weeks to come, Beijing will have to decide how far it will go to help Russia and its ruling class. It could help Moscow by releasing hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese bonds held by Russia, providing short-term loans or responding to Russian requests for military aid and support.

The United States, meanwhile, must decide how much to lure China into its technology and trade sanctions against Russia. Last month, the administration said it would ban all global trade in certain U.S. technology components to Russian companies using the foreign direct product rule, the same one used to shackle Huawei. If strictly enforced, it would mean imposing sanctions on any Chinese company that tries to sell artificial intelligence, surveillance and military technologies to Moscow.

“We’re reaching out across the world and saying we control a certain element of this product, and if you sell it to the Russians, we’re going to punish you,” said AEI member and commissioner Derek Scissors. economic and security review between the United States and China. “If this is to make sense, it must apply to the Chinese, who could be major suppliers to the Russians, or indirect suppliers to the Russians… So we can hit or threaten the Chinese with serious sanctions.”

Sullivan previewed this aspect of the talks on Sundaysaying his team is “communicating directly, privately to Beijing, that there will absolutely be consequences” for any effort to help Russia evade sanctions or provide military support.

The Ukraine crisis has already put other Chinese policies on hold in the White House, as a plan to prevent US banks from investing in Chinese tech companies and startups. Such a move has been discussed since at least last summer, but a source familiar with the talks with the administration said last week they had been put on hold as Sullivan and other officials focused on Russia.

Back to the 90s: Already, there are signs that sanctions from the West are having serious consequences in Russia, taking its economy back to “1990 or 1991”, said prominent Russian economist Sergey Guriev. said in an interview with the Brussels think tank Bruegel last Thursday.

“[The] The Russian economy is really going back in time: foreign companies are coming out in droves,” Guriev said. “It’s something the Russian government probably didn’t appreciate, and as we speak, the main action today in Russian policy-making is how to take back assets from foreign investors.”

FRACTURING THE WTO COULD CREATE NEW OPPORTUNITIES: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to further fracture the World Trade Organization and could persuade the United States and its allies to forge a new institution aimed at promoting free-market democracies, two former top officials say Trade. say in an editorial in The National Interest.

“Over the long term, we now have a powerful incentive for the United States and other democracies to overcome their longstanding disagreements, as happened recently in the US-EU aircraft dispute, and to exercise collective pressure on economies like China to play ball,” write former WTO deputy director Rufus Yerxa and former acting USTR deputy Wendy Cutler.

“Indeed, the current crisis could lead the United States and like-minded members to chart a new trading future outside the framework of the WTO,” they write, “without necessarily abandoning the WTO altogether, but by creating a new multilateral structure with deeper commitments between countries dedicated to market democracy.This may be the only lever available to change the status quo.

In a separate interview, Yerxa acknowledged that their suggestion resembled the big mega-regional trade deals pursued by the Obama administration — the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the EU and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. . The first failed and the second entered into force without the United States, after the withdrawal of former President Donald Trump.

A NATO for trade? : The Biden administration intends to negotiate an Indo-Pacific economic framework, but has made it clear that it will not be as comprehensive as the TPP. Yet the current situation could prompt new thinking in Washington and other capitals, particularly if China – a gigantic beneficiary of the current WTO system – is the main catalyst for Russian aggression against another member of the WTO,” Yerxa said.

“Just because there’s a UN Security Council, and UN peacekeeping forces and all that, doesn’t stop organizations like NATO from , which in many ways has more impact than the UN on a lot of these global peace and security issues,” Yerxa says. “If you think of this as an analogy, there can be much more serious discussions now about an architecture between democratic states that allows them to work together [on trade]. And to what extent this new institution might resemble the WTO is an open question.

PANIC BUYING IS BACK: But this time it’s not the people, it’s the countries. And they don’t stock toilet paper. They are holding back food exports for fear that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will cut off their own imports, reports Meredith Lee of the Agriculture team.

Some countries have rushed to find new sources of staples like grain, which are normally imported from Ukraine. But countries that could provide new supplies are holding back, fearing they will be hit by food insecurity.

G7 agriculture ministers: After the wheat market hit a record high earlier this week, US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and agriculture ministers from six other major economies warned on Friday that countries refusing to export food products would only cause further price spikes, saying it “could threaten food”. global security and nutrition, especially among the most vulnerable. Read more about the issue in today’s Weekly Agriculture.

– The White House in December canceled a plan to send more military trainers to Ukraine, POLITICO reports.

— Poland is trying to wean itself off Russian energy, but it is a heavy demand, POLITICO Europe Reports.

— The Russian government says the sanctions froze about half of its assets, Bloomberg reports.

— India is getting closer to setting up an alternative payment system to manage trade with Russia, Hindustan Hour Reports.

— Russia threatens to pay off its foreign debt in rubles as financial sanctions squeeze its reserves, Financial Times reports.

— Italian financial police seized a Russian oligarch’s yacht worth nearly $580 million, POLITICO Europe Reports.

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