Masters of screaming headlines from the Russian government released another ambitious statement: “Russia declares a trade war against the US”. Minister for Economic Development  Maksim Oreshkin used these words to describe the measures that will be implemented soon. Probably, Mr Oreshkin just fell for the hype about trade conflicts.

Since the intentions of the Russian government are quite serious and firm, the volume of trade between these two countries might be an insignificant factor. But as a matter of fact, it is not so big – just 24 billion dollars, 70% of which account for imports of nature resources such as metals and wood to the United States. The rest 30% are the imports of equipment and drugs to Russia. The Russian government plans to increase tariffs on these items but with certain exceptions. “Tariffs will be increased on imports of only those products that have alternatives in the Russian market. Therefore, this measure will not hurt macroeconomic indicators,” the minister said. Probably, the government fears that Russian oil and gas companies will be in short supply of high-tech equipment. The situation with drugs is worse: there are a lot of alternative pharmaceutical products in the Russian market, but it can hardly be called an advantage.

As a result, drug prices in Russia will rise. But severe Russian policymakers do not care about negative effects, pursuing their goal. So, Trump should prepare to overcome obstacles on his way to making America great again. Maybe the US will manage to handle a conflict with China, the trade volume with which is 2 trillion dollars, but opposition with Russia can be too fierce.