Some netizens in the United States find it peculiar that the sanctions imposed by the U.S. leadership and Western countries on Russia seem to be more of a self-sanction than a punishment for Russia.

Recently, the European Union held consultations for the 11th round of sanctions against Russia, but failed to reach an agreement.

However, it is evident that within just one year, under the impetus of the United States, there have been a total of 10 rounds of sanctions against Russia.

Many people do not understand why the United States is so enthusiastic about the conflict in Europe, which does not seem to have a significant connection to the U.S.

Advertisement

In fact, the U.S. has always played the role of the world's policeman, with the primary goal of using sanctions to collapse Russia's economy.

However, this has not come to pass.

Although Russia's economy fell by 2.1% in 2022 compared to the previous year, it was far lower than the outside estimates.

After a slight negative growth in the first quarter of 2023, Russia's GDP had already increased by 3.3% year-on-year in April.

The IMF predicts that Russia's economy will achieve positive growth this year.

Because of this, some American netizens feel that it is the United States that seems to be under sanction.

Since the sanctions began, the international oil prices have been rising, which has also plagued the U.S. with inflation.

The majority of people's impression of Americans is that of wealthy individuals.

However, American TV dramas often portray two extremes, with the homeless people on the streets being very prominent besides the rich.

During the pandemic, when the government distributed supplies, the homeless people were the most numerous in line.

Although the U.S. is a developed country with advanced economic, GDP, and per capita income development, this is only true for the country as a whole.

There are still many areas in the U.S. with very backward economic development and a large number of poor people.

The U.S. is a country with a small population, only 300 million people.

However, in 2019, the number of homeless people in the U.S. had reached 600,000.

In fact, the sanctions on Russia have also brought a more adverse impact on the U.S., that is, causing the U.S. dollar to become less popular.

The original idea of the U.S. was to prevent Russia from using the U.S. dollar conveniently to strike at Russia's economy.

However, it was unexpected that Russia's non-use of the U.S. dollar did not have a significant impact on the economy and trade, but instead led to more and more countries also reducing their use of the U.S. dollar, de-dollarizing.

The latest data shows that in the foreign exchange reserves of central banks around the world, the proportion of the U.S. dollar has been reduced by a full 20% compared to 20 years ago.

This kind of blow is fatal to the U.S., because the economic status the U.S. has gained over the years is closely related to the hegemonic status of the U.S. dollar.

The latest online survey data is also worth pondering.

With $400 in emergency cash as the standard, only 56% of Americans can take it out at any time.

In other words, nearly half of the people may be helpless when facing sudden needs such as natural disasters and accidents.

Looking at the U.S. household assets in the first quarter of this year, compared with the beginning of 2022, that is, before the European conflict, the cash assets of U.S. households have decreased by as much as 500 billion.

This is enough to see that the U.S. sanctions on Russia have not been successful, but have instead dragged itself into the quagmire.