Will Kazakhstan start a trade war with Poland? And what does Germany have to do with it?

Karavan.kz, a portal managed by Russians, has urged Kazakstan to start a trade war with Poland for it demanding new sanctions on Russia. Poland’s proposal includes a jab at the Friendship Oil Pipeline, which transmits allegedly Kazakh oil to Germany.

Karavan.kz published by Kazakhstan Today agency in four languages with editor-in-chief Leonid Yuriev, is a source of news about Kazakhstan in the world wide web, related to the Karawan paper with a circulation of 225,000 that has been published since 1991 in Almaty. Adil Urmanov’s April 25 article was published under the title: “Kazakhstan must prepare for war. A trade war.”

The article claims that Western sanctions against Russia are hitting Kazakhstan, which is an intermediary for Russian trade with the European Union and produces little other than oil, metals and bread. Urmanov argues that the 11th package of EU sanctions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will hit the economy of Kazakhstan, because it involves blocking the supply of various goods to Russia.

The author mentions that most of the goods are traded between Russia and the European Union through Kazakhstan and then the border of Poland and Belarus. “We should ourselves impose sanctions against the authors of these sanctions in order to defend our right to live normally,” Urmanov writes in the context of sanctions that are supposed to hit Kazakhstan with inflation. “You don’t have to think long about who to put them up against. The initiators of the eleventh package of sanctions are Poland, Lithuania and Estonia. Meanwhile, Poland introduces maximum restrictions on the transport of goods from Kazakhstan. It recently banned trucks from Russia. As a result, Kazakh truck companies have to use the sea route in the Baltic Sea, increasing the time spent in the car and raising additional costs,” writes the author of the text.

Urmanov recommends hitting food products, which are one of the main export goods of Poland, which supplies 70 percent of apples to Kazakhstan. “This tool must be used. It is necessary to introduce targeted tariffs limiting the supply of fruit from Poland, if its authorities do not want to take into account the interests of Kazakhstan. It’s going to be a trade war, but it’s worth it. We are already losing billions due to Polish bans. They will also lose hundreds of millions. Yeah, it’s a trade war. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan is always very diplomatic about the position of Poland, which directly affects the interests of our country. As it turns out, at our expense,” the author stated.

Poland and the Baltic states are demanding new sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Ukraine. Among the demands is a ban on the supply of Russian oil through the northern strand of the Friendship Pipeline, which Germany wants to use to supply oil from Kazakhstan. The Poles are are concerned that it will be Russian oil.

Karavan.kz/Wojciech Jakóbik