Britain and US impose embargo on Russian aluminum, copper, and nickel
The Ministry of Finance of the United States of America, in coordination with Great Britain, introduced sanctions on the income that the Russian Federation receives from the export of aluminum, copper, and nickel.
The US Treasury and the British government report this.
British government officials said metals exchanges play a central role in facilitating trade in industrial metals worldwide. The London and Chicago stock exchanges have warehouses all over the world. Together, they are the world's two largest metals exchanges and set the global base prices for the trade of base metals.
"Metals are Russia's largest export commodity after energy, though their value has been decreasing since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. In 2022 they were $25 billion, dropping to $15 billion in 2023 due to the efforts of the G7 and allies to curtail the market.
Today's action will go further to constrain Russia's ability to make money from its shrinking metals exports, dealing another blow to President Vladimir Putin's funding for his illegal war in Ukraine," the UK government wrote.
The US Treasury also noted that the new sanctions will stop the import of certain types of metals from Russia.
The US department emphasized, "This new action prohibits the import of Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel into the United States and limits the use of Russian-origin aluminum, copper, and nickel on global metal exchanges and in over-the-counter derivatives trading."
These restrictions confirm the statements of the G7 leaders regarding the reduction of Russia's income from metals.
"Our new prohibitions on key metals, in coordination with our partners in the United Kingdom, will continue to target the revenue Russia can earn to continue its brutal war against Ukraine," Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said.
In turn, the Minister of Finance of the United Kingdom, Jeremy Hunt, emphasized that these restrictions would better help deprive Putin of the ability to wage an illegal war in Ukraine.
"Thanks to Britain's leadership in this area, our decisive action with the U.S. to jointly ban Russian metals from the two largest exchanges will prevent the Kremlin funnelling more cash into its war machine," he noted.
It is noted that the sanctions apply to metals produced after April 13.
- As a result of today's collective action, two of the world's key exchanges, the London Metal Exchange (LME) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), will be banned from accepting new Russian-made aluminum, copper and nickel.
We will remind that on February 21, the permanent representatives of the European Union agreed to approve the 13th package of sanctions against the Russian Federation, which they plan to finally approve by the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
We will remind that on February 23, European Union adopted the 13th sanctions package against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
