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Though the trans-Atlantic hostility over the Ukraine crisis may be reminiscent of the Cold War, Putin’s move was less an echo of Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 boast, “We will bury you,” than a truculent “Who needs you?”

He may not like the answer. In Washington, Obama administration officials yesterday projected an air of detachment over what they described as the Russian leader playing a bad hand badly.

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Barely Measurable

“The steps that Russia announced are likely insignificant as an impact on the U.S. economy,” said David Cohen, Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. “What the Russians have done here is essentially impose sanctions on their own people.”

American exports to Russia are a barely measurable one-tenth of 1% of the U.S. gross domestic product, according to Jason Furman, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. The European Union depends on Russian customers for eight-tenths of 1% of the EU’s economy.

For a country that imports 40% of its foodstuffs, banning imported food would seem to be an odd strategy

American exporters sent US$1.3 billion in food and other agricultural products to Russia in fiscal 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Russia has barred imported American dairy products for several years, so the new sanctions will have “almost no impact,” said Alan Levitt, vice president of communications at the U.S. Dairy Export Council.

EU officials will meet next week to discuss the sanctions and French Agriculture Minister Stephane Le Foll said food prices in the domestic market may fall as produce earmarked for Russia swells supply. The price of peaches and nectarines in France is already down 22% after a bumper harvest, according to state statistical institute Insee.