Nothing in trade sanctions makes sense, but the Russian reaction to Europe and U.S. trade sanctions kind of breaks new ground in ridiculous. The Russians have decided, similar to their discovery of McDonald calorie counts during previous sanctions, that some soaps exceed the rigidly controlled toxicity requirements of the State regulatory agency, Rospotrebnadzor.
In today's Wall Street Journal comes some of the details [ PAUL SONNE and ELLEN EMMERENTZE JERVELL, Russia Restricting Sale of Some Western Cleaning Products, 25 August 2015 ] of this dust up over household cleaners. The article says Rospotrebnadzor did not publish a list of the offending chemicals, but named the companies involved: Procter & Gamble Co., Colgate-Palmolive Co., Clorox Co., Henkel AG and Werner & Mertz GmbH.
I didn't even know there were toxicity requirements for soap, though it does seem logical that there would have to be some, just as there were requirements for other goods imported into Russia during previous crises. It's obvious the selective enforcement of these policies is part of the overall strategy of dealing with sanctions, which the Russians say "have no effect" on them.
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