If Russia continues to invade Ukraine, the administration of President Joe Biden could deprive it of a wide swath of high-tech and low-tech goods made in the United States and abroad, from commercial electronics and computers to semiconductors and aircraft parts, people familiar with the matter said. the case.
Biden would accomplish this by expanding the list of goods that require US licenses before suppliers can ship them to Russia, and his administration would deny them, the sources said.
The measures, details of which have not been previously reported, are part of a set of export control sanctions that the United States has prepared to hurt Russia’s economy, targeting everything from lasers to telecommunications and maritime items.
The White House and the Commerce Department, which oversees US export controls, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The package, which was still being fine-tuned over the weekend and could change, comes despite some White House officials vowing to spare Russian consumers the burden of sanctions.
The goal of the export control measures “is really to degrade Russia’s ability to have industrial production in a couple of key sectors,” Peter Harrell, who is a member of the White House National Security Council, said in a speech Tuesday. last month.
“We are thinking about how to degrade Russia’s industrial production and high-tech sectors, rather than how to attack the Russian people in general,” he added.
The government has vowed to hit Moscow with a potent cocktail of banking sanctions and export controls for weeks, in response to the massing of hundreds of thousands of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders.
Biden on Tuesday announced the first round of sanctions against Russia and promised harsher punishments ahead if Moscow continues its aggression. The sanctions, among other things, target Russian banks and sovereign debt.
The export control package builds on restrictions placed on Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd by former President Donald Trump.
The measures would dramatically expand the scope of the so-called Foreign Direct Products Rule (FDPR), which requires companies that use US tools to manufacture technology abroad to obtain a US license before shipping them to Russia. .
“It’s extraordinarily novel and has the potential to be much more significant than controls just on exports of these items from the United States,” said Washington attorney Kevin Wolf, a former Commerce Department official.
Most of the chips are made on American equipment, giving the United States the ability to control the flow of electronics into Russia.
US suppliers would also have to obtain licenses for certain items destined for Russia that do not currently require licenses, such as civil aircraft parts. It remains to be seen whether Europe will follow suit with similar measures.
Japan said on Tuesday it was ready to join the United States and other G7 industrialized countries in imposing sanctions on Russia should Putin order an invasion of Ukraine.
Source: Gestion
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