On May 22, Russia’s parliament adopted a wide-ranging and open-ended bill that could freeze crucial exports to the US and imports from the US to Russia, and potentially other countries.
The bill is said to be a response to the latest US sanctions on specific Russian citizens and Russian businesses. The bill allows the Russian president to ban or suspend cooperation with a hostile state and correspondingly ban imports of goods from those countries.
Some Russian lawmakers also brought up the issue of the potential need to ban ferrous scrap exports. Specifics were not yet discussed but several outlets report that Russia is “likely to proceed with some law to ban or limit the export of ferrous scrap as ferrous scrap exports surged almost 70 percent in Q1 2018 compared to the same quarter in 2017.” Specific volume figures were not provided.