This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel. I welcome Michael Bernstein, my colleague. He's at the Hoover Institution,

and has been my guide on Russian sanctions since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war.

And the twists have been plenty, but nothing like what we're anticipating now and going forward.

Michael, a very good evening to you.

Sanctions.

What are sanctions compared to a worldwide tariff panic?

And now the price of oil has been most determinative for your explanation of what needs to

be done for sanctions.

And recently we talked, for example, about how the Saudis were increasing production in

early April, and that was very likely to drive the price of oil down.

And then we talked about penalties that could be put on a barrel of oil going to India or China,

the consumers of Russian oil in the shadow fleet, putting a20 bounty on them a tariff on them in some

fashion however now we learned that it all was for naught because the worldwide fear of a trade

war has led to the price of oil being cut to well at some point some point it touched 60, maybe even could go lower.

Now, my learning from you, Michael, this isn't just good news.

This is terrific news for the Ukrainian war because the Russian budget is broken.

Do I remember that correctly?

Good evening to you, Michael.

Good evening to you.

And what happens, the world is interconnected.

And now there are two coincidences, totally unrelated, totally unscripted.

One is that on April the 3rd, a few days ago, there was an online meeting of Saudi Arabia,

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