The White House is weighing new export controls on advanced technologies, threatening Russia’s strategic ambitions, and plans to surge natural gas to Europe if Moscow invades Ukraine, administration officials said.
“We are prepared to implement sanctions with massive consequences that were not considered in 2014. That means the gradualism of the past is out, and this time, we will start at the top of the escalation ladder and stay there,” a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday, citing a range of economic tools and controls with immediate and longer-range potential to hurt the Russian economy.
The proposed novel export controls would deny Moscow access to advanced tools and software necessary to industrialize Russia’s economy, in sectors ranging from quantum computing to artificial intelligence to aerospace to defense, that cannot be replaced with domestic suppliers.
“We’re willing to work with any country in order to deny Russia the input that it needs to diversify its economy,“ the official said.
The proposal would expand the reach of U.S. sanctions beyond the financial tools in a move used to crater China’s Huawei technology behemoth.
“These measures can be incredibly potent in ways that would affect [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s calculation,” said the first official, arguing that sanctions imposed by the United States on Moscow in 2014, including the restriction of foreign capital to Russia, had a measurable effect on the Russian leader’s calculus. “Many people felt as though he would have marched much further into Ukraine at that time had it not been for the cost that he was facing.”
The official said the threat of a ramped-up slate of sanctions has already led to deepening sell-offs in the Russian equity markets, a depreciating currency value, increased borrowing costs, and more.
The U.S. is also engaged in discussions over alternative energy supplies to ensure Europe, which is heavily reliant on gas from Russia, is able to make it through the winter and spring.
“We’ve been working to identify additional volumes of non-Russian natural gas from various areas of the world, from North Africa and the Middle East to Asia,” another senior administration official said, with the U.S. preparing to ensure supplies that would cover a majority of the potential shortfall.
The White House declined to give specifics on the nature of the discussions, and with whom they were being had, but said officials were locating suppliers able to increase their production and bring on volumes of gas into Europe through existing pipelines.
In addition, weaponizing the supply of gas would prove consequential to the Russian economy, of which oil and gas export revenues form a large part.
The official warned that by restricting supply, Putin “is creating a major incentive to accelerate the diversification of their energy supplies away from Russia,” further harming the Russian economy over the long term.
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If Russia does not move farther into Ukraine, the U.S. would retreat from its threats.
“These are really contingency plans to see what happens between Russia and Ukraine. If Russia does not invade Ukraine, and it comes back to its senses, and avoids the conflict that we’re all discussing, then our mitigation efforts will look very, very different,” the second official said.
