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Russian President Vladimir Putin's yacht Graceful.Marcus Brandt/picture alliance via Getty Images
Vladimir Putin's yacht Graceful left Hamburg before finishing repairs, German media reported.
It is speculated Graceful made an abrupt exit to avoid Western sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine.
The luxury superyacht is said to be worth at least $100 million.
A yacht named Graceful and said to belong to Russian President Vladimir Putin left port in Hamburg abruptly before finishing repairs, according to reports from German media.
It is unclear what prompted the move, but the $100 million yacht's relocation from German waters to Kaliningrad, part of Russian territory, came amid fears the West would impose sanctions if Russia invaded Ukraine.
While Moscow has continuously denied any plans to invade its neighbor, it has gathered over 100,000 troops at positions all around Ukraine and has even sent six assault ships into the Black Sea, moving more combat power toward the former Soviet territory.
The US and UK have warned of sanctions on Russian elites, and President Joe Biden has threatened to sanction Putin personally should Russia decide to attack Ukraine. He has also deployed troops to Eastern Europe to support NATO members and has put thousands of US troops on "heightened alert" as tensions rise.
Some have speculated that sanctions could target certain luxury assets. Graceful was spotted on a public maritime-traffic-tracking site sailing for Kaliningrad.
Even on the day two years ago that the trade deal was inked, there was skepticism that China would live up to its pledge to spend $200 billion more on U.S. goods and services.
But a new study finds China didn’t even spend an additional dime on U.S. products.
Chad Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics examined the so-called Phase 1 agreement inked during the administration of former President Donald Trump.
China agreed to buy at least $227.9 billion of U.S. exports in 2020 and $274.5 billion in 2021, for a total of $502.4 billion over the pact’s two years, he noted. In reality: U.S. exports of covered goods and services to China over the two years totaled $288.8 billion.
There were many reasons for this failure. The trade war that preceded the trade pact, finalized in January 2020, meant that U.S. goods exporters started in a hole, Bown said.
Another reason for the failure was the fatal crash of two Boeing BA, -0.04% jets, which led the U.S. airplane maker to halt 737 Max production and led China to cancel orders.
The pandemic was another big factor, as it slammed services exports, as well as travel and education. Financial-services exports and charges for intellectual property were down slightly in 2020, though Bown said they may improve over the longer term.
U.S. agricultural exports, which were politically significant, did recover from the trade war but also fell shy of commitments under the deal, Bown said.
Bown conceded that the deal wasn’t a total washout. “The deal did halt his spiraling trade war. And several of its elements should be kept, notably China’s commitments to remove technical barriers to U.S. farm exports, respect intellectual property, and open up its financial services sector,” he said. But the main lesson of the phase one agreement, according to Bown, was that different terms for the trade relationship are still needed.
• Maz Jobrani | “The Birds & The Bees” ...
Rep. Madeleine Dean torches Linda McMahon over the administration’s plan to shut down the Department of Education and dump the fallout on states. Maz Jobrani breaks it down.
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