Biden urges G-7: Keep pressure on
President Biden told allies at a G7 summit Sunday that “we have to stay together” against Russia as the group moved to ban imports of Russian gold in a continuing effort to squeeze Moscow out of the global economy.
“We have to stay together, because Putin has been counting on, from the beginning, that somehow NATO and the G-7 would splinter, but we haven’t and we’re not going to,” Biden told German Chancellor and current G-7 President Olaf Scholz at a pre-summit meeting.
The formal announcement about the fresh sanctions squeeze is expected to come Tuesday during the summit of leading industrial nations in the Bavarian Alps.
The US and its Western allies have slapped a series of economic sanctions on Russia, Kremlin officials and many of its oligarchs intended to cut off revenue streams that allow President Vladimir Putin to finance the war in Ukraine that he launched on Feb. 24.
“In this case, gold, after energy, is the second-largest export for Russia and a source of significant revenue for Putin and Russia,” a senior Biden administration official said Sunday.
“The United States Treasury will issue a determination to prohibit the import of new gold into the United States on Tuesday, which will further isolate Russia from the global economy by preventing its participation in the gold market,” the official added.
Gold has replaced energy as Russia’s top export in recent years, hitting $19 billion or about 5% of global gold exports in 2020, the White House said.
About 90% of those exports were to countries in the G-7.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in a statement hailed the move to squeeze Russia, saying the ban will “directly hit Russian oligarchs and strike at the heart of Putin’s war machine.”
“Putin is squandering his dwindling resources on this pointless and barbaric war. He is bankrolling his ego at the expense of both the Ukrainian and Russian people,” Johnson continued. “We need to starve the Putin regime of its funding.”
Biden also announced that the G-7 nations are following through on a commitment to raise $600 billion in private and public funds over the next five years for infrastructure projects in developing countries to counter China’s increasing global influence. He said the US would mobilize $200 billion for the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.
“This isn’t aid or charity. It’s an investment that will deliver returns for everyone, including the American people and the people of all our nations,” he said.
Meanwhile, as the G-7 summit was set to begin, Russia launched missile strikes against the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Sunday, hitting at least two residential buildings.