Business | The travelling-salesman problem

Amid Russia’s war, America Inc reckons with the promise and peril of foreign markets

Multinational companies grapple with a fracturing world

|NEW YORK

THE RUSH from Russia was unlike anything in recent memory. Within days of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, American companies from Apple to Exxon Mobil suspended their business in Russia or said they would abandon it. Companies with factories and other assets in the country are now mulling ways to fend off possible expropriation. American technology giants are embroiled in a battle over misinformation—Russian authorities blocked access to Facebook on March 4th and said they would jail or fine those spreading “fake” news about the war. A day later Visa and Mastercard said they would suspend all operations in Russia.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The travelling-salesman problem”

The Stalinisation of Russia

From the March 12th 2022 edition

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