The Biden administration has not decided whether to ban imports of Russian oil into the United States, the White House said Monday.
President Joe Biden has faced calls from a bipartisan group of lawmakers to pass new restrictions, a move intended to ramp up economic pressure on President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.
Biden’s press secretary said the prospect remains under active discussion both inside the administration and with allies, with the question arising during a call with the leaders of France, Germany, and the United Kingdom on Monday.
WHITE HOUSE HAS ‘LOST CONTROL ON THE HILL’ OVER RUSSIAN OIL BAN
“Those discussions are ongoing internally and also with our counterparts and partners in Europe and around the world,” Jen Psaki said.
An oil embargo among allies would mark a significant escalation in the West’s economic fight against Moscow. While the U.S. can boost domestic energy output and only imports a small percentage of Russian oil, European countries heavily rely on Russian energy.
Psaki suggested European allies face different considerations when weighing such a ban.
“Just to give you a point of comparison, the amount that the United States was importing back in 2021 before the invasion was about 700,000 barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum. The Europeans import about 4.5 million barrels per day of oil,” she said.
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The U.S. has pressed for coordinated efforts wherever possible in implementing its penalties on Moscow, arguing that multilateral action significantly drives up the cost of the penalties. Economic penalties imposed by the U.S. and its allies have had a crippling impact on Russia’s economy since the start of the invasion.
The prospect of a broader ban arose over the weekend, when Biden’s secretary of state said during an interview with Meet the Press on Sunday that the U.S. was “in very active discussions with our European partners about banning the import of Russian oil to our countries.”
