Russian Oil Sanctions Upended the World. Gold Bans Won’t

Last month, sanctions on Russia upended the oil market, the world’s biggest commodities trade. Now, Group of Seven leaders are proposing to repeat the trick with the second-biggest trade, gold. Don’t expect the same reaction.

Between European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen first proposing sanctions on crude in early May and the package being introduced a month later, prices for Brent rose about 14%, on top of the 8.4% rise they’d seen since the invasion of Ukraine began in February.

Gold has had a quieter year, down 3.9% since Russian forces rolled across the Ukrainian border. Despite Moscow’s status as the third-biggest producer of the yellow metal, the import bans set to be announced at the G-7 meeting this week in Germany aren’t likely to reverse that bout of weakness.

Partly, that’s just a function of market scale. In a normal year, Russia accounts for about 12% of the world’s crude…