It seems that not a day goes by when the Joe Biden administration is not caught up in some kind of a disaster move. Now it has come to light that Joe Biden wants to steal 300bn$ from Russia in the last week of his administration days. The short-sighted Biden is seemingly oblivious about the grave consequences of this move, not just with regards to Russia but also the entire developing world, including India and China.
As per a report by the CNN, Washington is pushing the European Union (EU) to seize Russian assets frozen within the bloc before President Joe Biden leaves office within days. Since the Ukraine war began three years ago, the US and its allies froze around $300 billion of Russian government funds, held mainly in the Euroclear system based in Brussels.
However, the EU has shied away from confiscating these funds outright. Officials worry that such a move could damage the EU’s global reputation and provoke economic retaliation from Russia. The Kremlin has strongly opposed the freezing of its funds, calling it “illegal.” Moscow has warned that if the assets are confiscated, it will treat the act as theft and retaliate by targeting over $300 billion worth of Western assets in Russia.
Now, as per CNN, the administration of Joe Biden is making a final push to get the EU to move the funds into a special escrow account. The idea is that this account could be used as leverage during peace talks with Russia. A senior US official said, “If Russia wants the money back, they’ll have to come and negotiate.”
Biden’s team claims the strategy has some support among officials chosen by Donald Trump, who will take office on January 20. However, EU governments remain doubtful. They fear confiscating the money could break international laws, making the proposal unlikely to succeed.
The US has been arguing for this plan for over a year. In May, Daleep Singh, a key architect of US sanctions, said freezing Russian assets was already a big step but acknowledged that full confiscation crossed a “red line” for many countries. Biden had planned to discuss the issue during a meeting in Rome with Ukraine’s Zelensky and Italy’s Meloni. However, he canceled the trip due to wildfires in Los Angeles.
Meanwhile Zelensky, in a recent podcast interview, insisted Ukraine should get all the frozen funds. He said the money could support Ukraine’s domestic production and purchase more weapons from the US.
Russian officials quickly blasted Zelensky’s comments. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called his remarks “nonsense” and accused him of promoting extremist views.
Confiscating those assets owned by Russia will erode the confidence of developing world on the West-backed financial system. There is a reason why BRICS nations, including giants like Russia, China and India, are mulling creating a currency of their own and even a parallel financial system, that is free of any Western interference. Today, each and every developing country has stakes and investments in EU and the US. These nations are reasonably worried that their own investments might someday be hijacked by the Western governments and would be used as a bargaining chip.
The way the West has treated Russian assets over the past three years has actually set a warning bell ringing among the global south. That’s the reason why dozens of countries today are lining up to join the BRICS forum. The US and EU may hijack and steal $300 billion worth of Russian assets, but it will end up eroding the world’s confidence in these nations forever and it will also force fence-sitters to look for alternate options. With the Donald Trump inauguration only days away it seems Joe Biden is bent on completely sabotaging Russia’s ties with the west before Trump takes office.