US and UK announce stricter measures to reduce Russia's revenue from metals trade

April 13 () –

The spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller, reported this Friday that the United States and the United Kingdom will take additional measures to “disrupt” the benefits that Russia obtains from the metals trade in order to deprive the country of “the income necessary to finance their illegal war against Ukraine.”

“The United States, in coordination with the United Kingdom, is taking additional steps today to disrupt Russian revenues from its metals trade by prohibiting the importation into the United States of aluminum, copper and nickel of Russian origin,” the Department announced in a statement.

Along the same lines, the US Treasury Department has announced that it also prohibits “the export, re-export, sale or provision of guarantee services to any person located in the Russian Federation of aluminum, copper or nickel of Russian origin in a global exchange of metals and services to those metals of Russian origin as part of the physical settlement of a derivative contract,” the aforementioned note states.

These bans include the London Metal Exchange and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, two of the largest in the world, which “will no longer accept new aluminum, copper and nickel produced by Russia” considerably reducing the Kremlin's income.

“Crippling (Russian President Vladimir) Putin's ability to wage his illegal war in Ukraine is best achieved if we act together with our allies. Thanks to British leadership in this area, our decisive action with the United States to jointly ban Russian metals in the two largest stock markets will prevent the Kremlin from funneling more cash into its war machine,” British chancellor Jeremy Hunt has argued.

Likewise, “by taking this action in a specific and responsible manner”, not only will Russia's profits be reduced but at the same time the US and the United Kingdom will “protect” their “partners and allies from unwanted collateral effects,” the statement added. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

The measure will not affect, however, the acquisition of existing reserves of Russian metals that are already on the stock exchange, which will not suffer restrictions “in order to avoid disturbances in the markets.”

Likewise, titanium and platinum group metals, such as platinum and palladium, are excluded from this action, “due to sensitivities in the supply chain,” the British Executive has reasoned.