President Joe Biden on Friday announced that the US will revoke normal trade relations with Russia.
The move will ramp up economic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin and further isolate Moscow from the global stage, Biden said in a press briefing at the White House.
"Later today … with other NATO allies and G7 members, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the EU, we are going to jointly announce several new steps to squeeze Putin," he told.
"First, each of our nations are going to take steps to deny most favored nation status to Russia," he said, which meant two countries had an agreement to trade with each other with low tariffs, with few barriers to trade and highest imports allowed.
In the US, this is called permanent normal trade relations (PNTR), Biden noted.
"Revoking PNTR for Russia is going to make harder for Russia to do business with the US, and doing it in unison with other nations (that) make up half of the global economy will be another crushing blow to the Russian economy already suffering very badly from our sanctions," he explained.
Biden emphasized that unity among the US' allies is critically important, adding: "The free world is coming together to confront Putin."
The president said an additional step to ban imports of goods of several sectors of the Russian economy, including sea foods, vodka and diamonds.
"We are going to continue squeezing Putin. The G7 will seek to deny Russia the ability to borrow from leading institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank," he said.
"Putin is an aggressor. He is the aggressor. And, Putin must pay the price," Biden said, stressing that the Russian leader cannot pursue a war that threatens the foundation of international peace and stability.
"The G7 is also stepping up pressure on corrupt Russian billionaires. We are adding new names to the list of oligarchs and their families that we are targeting," he said. "They support Putin, they steal from the Russian people. And, they seek to hide their money in our countries ... They must share the pain of these sanctions."
Biden said the US is also banning exports of luxury goods to Russia.
"Totality of our sanctions and exports controls are crushing Russian economy. The [Russian] ruble has lost more than half of its value. It takes about 200 rubles to equal one dollar these days. Moscow stock exchange has been for two weeks, because they know the moment it opens it will probably collapse," he said.
Biden noted that credit rating agencies have been downgrading Russia to "junk" status.
He also added the US set aside $1 billion in security assistance to Ukraine last year which includes anti-armor and anti-air capabilities, in addition to humanitarian supplies such as food, water, medicines.
"We will make sure Ukraine has weapons of defending against an invading Russian force. We will send money and food and aid to save to Ukrainian people," he said
"We will defend every single inch of NATO territory with the full might and the united and galvanized NATO. We will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. Direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III. Something we must strive to prevent," he added.
