President Joe Biden announced Friday that along with the European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the U.S. will move to revoke “most favored nation” trade status for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
The White House and a bipartisan team in Congress are moving to yank Russia’s favorable trade status with the United States in a move meant to further squeeze the crumbling Russian economy and frustrate President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to take over Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced Friday.
Biden said he was prepared to sign legislation taking away the Permanent Normal Trade Relations status Russia has had with the United States. The status means that the two nations trade with each other on the best possible terms, in terms of tariffs and other details.
Biden said he had been working with other nations, including the G-7, on additional sanctions, including denying Russia the ability to gain financing from international banks such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. He thanked, by name, Republicans and Democrats in Congress for working with him on the issue and giving him the time to line up international support to make the sanctions more powerful.
“Doing it in unison with other nations that make up half the global economy will be another crushing blow to the Russian economy that’s already suffering badly from our sanctions,” Biden said in remarks at the White House.
“We’re going to continue to squeeze Putin,” Biden added. “Putin is an aggressor. He is the aggressor, and Putin must pay the price.”
The U.S. will also ban imports of Russian goods, including seafood, vodka and diamonds, Biden said. Further, the export of luxury goods from the United States will be banned, denying Russia’s oligarchs and elites who support Putin from enjoying the high life while the Russian and Ukrainian people suffer, he said.
But Biden, who said he had just gotten off the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stressed that the United States was not going to get involved in a hot war with Russia.
“We will make sure Ukraine has weapons to defend itself against an invasion from Russia,” Biden said. We will defend every inch of NATO territory. But “we will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine,” he said.
“Direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III,” Biden said grimly. “Something we must strive to prevent.”
Biden has been under pressure from some in Congress to help out Ukraine with a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine. But doing so would escalate the situation to an all-out war between NATO and nuclear-armed Russia, administration officials have warned.
Biden said he would not divulge intelligence about rumored plans by Putin to use chemical weapons. “But Russia would pay a severe price” if he did, the president said, answering a question from a reporter as he left the podium.