The move was described by critics as an act of “economic war” against Moscow
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / Mikhail Makarov
The US House of Representatives has passed a bill authorizing the government to liquidate seized Russian assets and transfer the proceeds to Ukraine. It also includes measures forcing the sale of TikTok by its Chinese owners and authorizing stricter sanctions on Russia, China, and Iran.
The bill was passed by 360 votes to 58 on Saturday. Known as the ‘21st Century Peace through Strength Act’, it rolled together a number of previously disparate bills, most notably the so-called ‘Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (REPO) for Ukrainians Act’, which allows the Biden administration to confiscate billions of dollars’ worth of Russian assets held by American banks and transfer them to Ukraine.
The US and EU have blocked an estimated $300 billion in assets belonging to the Russian central bank since the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. The vast majority of these assets are held in Europe, but American banks are sitting on around $6 billion, according to multiple reports in US media outlets.
At present, the US has no legal mechanism to seize these assets, and has moved relatively paltry sums of seized Russian money to Estonia for use in Ukraine.
While the bill passed with bipartisan support, it was strongly condemned by fiscal conservatives and anti-war Republicans. US Senator Rand Paul warned earlier this year that “confiscating Russia’s sovereign assets is an act of economic war” that would undermine global confidence in the US.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a similar warning on Friday, while the Kremlin has declared that any actions taken against its assets would amount to flagrant “theft.”
The ‘Peace Through Strength Act’ also included a measure that would ban TikTok if the app’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell off its US operations.
