President Biden announced Friday that the U.S. will suspend normal trade relations with Russia as part of the ongoing effort to punish President Vladimir Putin for his unprovoked war in Ukraine.
“Putin is the aggressor and he must pay the price,” Biden said in remarks from the White House, declaring that sanctions already imposed by the West are “crushing” Russia’s economy and warning that Moscow would pay “a severe price” if it deploys chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, as the White House suggested this week it may be plotting to do.
The latest move, which came in concert with the Group of 7 and European Union, paves the way for the administration to increase tariffs on Russian imports above the levels pledged to all World Trade Organization members.
Thanking lawmakers for holding off on legislation until he could coordinate with allies, Biden announced that “each of our nations is going to take steps to deny most favored nation status to Russia,” which he said will “make it harder for Russia to do business with the United States.”
Biden’s remarks from the White House Roosevelt Room came shortly after a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who sought to bolster his country’s resolve in a video message on the 16th day of fighting and as Russian forces slowly move closer to the capital city of Kyiv.
Zelensky tweeted that it was a “substantive” conversation that focused on the next steps of the West’s response to Russia. A short White House readout said that Biden “highlighted how the United States is continuing to surge security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine” and updated Zelensky on the latest moves.
Biden on Friday emphasized the importance of moving in lockstep with Europe against Russia, adding that “doing it in unison with other nations that make up half of the global economy will be another crushing blow to the Russian economy that has already suffered very badly from our sanctions.”