“It will only make the financial crisis worse,” Angus King, an independent senator from Maine, told CNN in a phone interview.
King, Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn, Tennessee Republican Bill Haggerty and New Hampshire Democrat Maggie Hassan, would impose secondary sanctions on any US entities that knowingly transact or transport gold from Russia’s central bank holdings. It would similarly penalize US entities that sell gold physically or electronically in Russia.
“We are proposing to take another route and increase the financial pressure to stop this brutal campaign in Ukraine,” said King, who praised the different political backgrounds of the bill’s sponsors. “You’ve never seen such a bipartisan bill.”
Cornyn said in a statement this week that the sanctions would target parties that “help Russia finance its war by buying or selling this blood gold.”
‘slush fund’
The West has hit out at Putin’s $600 billion war chest – the currency reserves of Russia’s Central Bank in recent years would have allowed him to steer clear of a storm of sanctions.
“The gold is part of this mud fund that Putin created in anticipation of sanctions,” King said.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned on Thursday that US officials and allies in Europe are considering new sanctions against Russia.
“At this point, we do not see Russia looking back from the terrible war they started, an unprovoked invasion of the Ukrainian homeland,” Yellen said during a Washington Post Live event. “Indeed, the atrocities they are committing against civilians are intensifying. Therefore, it is certainly appropriate for us to consider further sanctions together with our allies.”
White House officials did not respond to inquiries about whether the administration supports a bipartisan gold law.
Putin is the ‘corner’
King, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, argued that Putin has made “a series of grossly miscalculations” with Ukraine, undermining the unity of the West and the impact of sanctions.
“We told him it was coming,” said the king. “I don’t know if he didn’t believe it or was not well advised, but I’m pretty sure he didn’t anticipate the brutality of the sanctions.”
Either way, King said Putin is “destroying two countries: Russia and Ukraine.”
“He is besieged. He has already lost this war,” said the king. “Even if he wins a short-lived battle over Kyiv, there is no way he can hold Ukraine and integrate Ukraine into Russia because he has instilled a hatred for Russia and himself. Which will last for a generation.”
Among the economic consequences: Dozens of major Western brands are distancing themselves from Moscow, everyone from McDonald’s and General Electric to Goldman Sachs and PayPal have suspended some or all of their operations in Russia.
King said Western companies that haven’t backed down from Russia should ask themselves whether they really want to join the “brutal regime that bombed hospitals.”
“There is a significant reputation risk,” he said.