Despite initial predictions that Western sanctions on Russian energy would keep oil prices high, the market has seen a steady decline due to a significant redirection of Russian oil exports from Europe to countries like China, India, Turkey, and African nations. This shift, facilitated by a new, non-Western financial system developed by the BRICS countries, allowed Russia to maintain export volumes and revenues due to its low production costs. Similarly, Iran, also under heavy sanctions, has significantly increased oil production and revenues, demonstrating the ineffectiveness of sanctions in constraining these nations' oil trade. The overall decrease in global oil prices is beneficial for most economies, particularly those in the BRICS bloc, and is further driven down by a reduction in demand from China due to the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.

Nice piece explaining why even suspicion of #TRUMP sharing secrets w/ #Russia hurts relations w/ #Israel & others.

President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State.

The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”