US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has unveiled that imposing a complete ban on Russian oil exports was ruled out for fearing a huge spike in oil prices. “The issue with blocking oil exports from Russia is that many countries, especially in Europe, are very dependent on that oil,” Yallen said before House Financial Services Committee annual hearing on the state of the international financial system on Wednesday.
“And we’re likely to see skyrocketing prices if we did put a complete ban on oil.” She clarified that as the demand for oil is generally steady, too many restrictions on supply can have “very large price effects”. “In designing sanctions, we want to impose the maximum pain we can on Russia, but also taking care not to impose undue pain on Americans and our partners,” Yellen said.
The United States won’t participate in G20 meetings that Russia is participating in, she disclosed, adding that she’d made that position clear to other finance ministers in the group. “President Biden’s made clear, and I certainly agree with him, that it cannot be business as usual for Russia in any of the financial institutions,” Yellen said.
“He’s asked that Russia be removed from the G20 and I’ve made clear to my colleagues in Indonesia that we will not be participating in a number of meetings if the Russians are there,” she said.
Source: KUNA