G-7 Russian Oil Price Cap Plan Is A Display Of Unbridled Hubris

G-7 Russian Oil Price Cap Plan Is A Display Of Unbridled Hubris

On Sunday, U.S. President Joe Biden and the rest of the G-7 leaders discussed a plan to invoke a global price cap on Russian exports of crude oil. It was a display of unbridled hubris rarely matched in modern times.

The Washington Post reported that during a conference call with reporters, an unnamed senior Biden administration official “said the leaders were finalizing details and were “very close” to urgently directing their nations’ relevant cabinet ministers to create a system to set a global price cap for Russian oil shipments to countries outside the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and other G-7 nations.”

So, let’s think about that for a second. The first problem that immediately comes to mind with such a global plan is the incredible complexity that would be involved. In creating such a system, the cabinet ministers of these 7 nations would have to develop a process that would somehow be able to trace oil volumes that flow out of Russia via a myriad series of pipelines, trucks and tankers ships and ultimately become commingled with millions of barrels of oil from other exporting and producing countries every day.

Just last week, the U.S. government expressed concern that