The softening of U.S. sanctions against Russian aluminum producer Rusal sends at least two important signals to investors and to official Moscow. One is that the Trump administration has little understanding of the impact of its moves before it makes them. The other is that it doesn't want to impose sanctions that will do a lot of collateral damage outside Russia.
These peculiarities of the U.S. sanctions policy are both a blessing and a curse for President Vladimir Putin's Russia. The trial and error nature of the policy means any individual (and his or her companies) can be hit at any time, especially if they have the misfortune to appear on Forbes Russia's list, used by the U.S. Treasury Department as a master list of sanctionable "oligarchs." But the U.S. unwillingness to inflict damage on its "partners and allies," whose interests Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin mentioned as the reason for his retreat on Rusal, sends an unmistakable message to Russian companies and the Russian state: spreading operations internationally is an effective way to discourage sanctions. That's good to know for both strategic and tactical purposes.
