© Reuters / David Mdzinarishvili
"Preliminary consultations show that today almost no leaders of EU states find it necessary to impose trade and economic sanctions on Russia," a source in the delegation from a Western European country said with confidence to ITAR-TASS.
However the European officials carried out preparatory work on possible sanctions to implement against Russia if the situation in Ukraine demands so.
Sanctions will be most effective if the main trade partners from Europe take part, the White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. The Obama Administration doesn't want to put US companies in unprofitable conditions in terms of the competition should it introduce further sanctions against Russia, he added.
The US needs the EU as a partner in enforcing economic measures as the trade volume between Russia and Europe of $330 billion is almost ten times Russia-America trade.
On Wednesday the main US newspapers published advertisements by leading business groups saying new sanctions against Russia will first of all harm national companies.
© New York Times
"With escalating global tensions, some US policy makers are considering a course of sanctions that history shows hurts American interests," reads the advertisement. "We are concerned about actions that would harm American manufacturers and cost American jobs."
Donohue draws parallels between the present threat of sanctions with ineffective grain embargo which US President Jimmy Carter imposed against the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan and which was cancelled by President Ronald Reagan.
"US workers and industries pay the cost of unilateral economic sanctions that have little hope of increasing the United States' ability to achieve its foreign policy goals is said in the statement," the authors conclude.
How best to describe the reality of sanctons?
How about....
He who would give up a little National Freedom and National Liberty for a little National Security deserves, and shall have, neither.
Sanctions are a self-awarded shiny medal for the boaster atop the podium. The sanctions afflict both sides indiscriminately, and, since they accomplish not what they are imposed to do, invite further affliction. The inevitable day approaches when War is resorted to, the justification given that sanctions are exhausted and there is no political solution.
The political solution path was abandoned the day the first sanction was imposed.