Written in GLOBAL he 4/24/2024 · 6:58 pm
A Russian court has frozen around $440 million worth of assets belonging to one of the largest banks in the United States, JP Morgan.
The information is from the Financial Times.
It would have been in retaliation for the fact that the European Union and the United States are considering using Russian money frozen in the West to finance Ukraine.
The aid package sanctioned today by President Joe Biden goes beyond the almost US$61 billion allocated to Volodymyr Zelensky’s government.
It mandates that the Treasury Department locate Russian assets in the United States and, within a maximum of six months, report to Congress. From then on, the White House will be able to “seize, confiscate, transfer or take over” the assets, estimated at US$5 billion.
In Europe, assets are estimated at almost US$300 billion, yielding more than US$3 billion per year.
To avoid legal imbroglios, the United States and the EU are likely to act together.
However, there is strong reluctance from sectors of the financial market, fearing the impact that this type of action could have on the role of the dollar as an international currency.
The conservative Heritage Foundation, for example, criticized the move, citing the risk of exposing “an already fragile economy to unforeseen consequences and risks for which the United States is unprepared.”
END OF AN ERA
Interviewed by the Russian website Sputnik, financial analyst Tom Luongo opined:
This act marks the end of the modern era of finance and commerce. From here, the world will fracture and the US will lose billions in trade. This confirms my argument that [as figuras] of the US leadership are vandals intent on collapse rather than having any loyalty to the people or what remains of the ideals upon which the country was founded.
In a recent post on X, Sputnik said that China is accelerating the exchange of its reserves — from US Treasury bonds to gold:
China has been getting rid of US debt for several years, having its investment [naqueles papéis] reached a 14-year low in October 2023. China is minimizing its exposure to the US dollar, seeing how the US has weaponized the dollar by freezing and now threatening to confiscate the financial assets of the Russian Central Bank. Instead, China accumulates gold, a reserve asset with no counterparty risk. Its gold reserve is now 2,235 tonnes, just 100 tonnes less than Russia’s, according to the World Gold Council.
