The White House is close to making a decision on the ban of the import of Russian oil, Bloomberg agency reported citing unofficial sources.
Until now, such sanctions were not imposed partly because of fears that they would affect inflation in the U.S. «We are in a very good place; we are not importing a lot of Russian oil. We are considering different decisions that we could make if we were to limit the consumption of Russian materials in USA,» Cecilia Rouse, the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers of Biden’s administration, commented on the information. White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, said that the U.S. is consulting with European allies to make the ban on oil and gas imports the most effective. «I will not go into details, as we are focusing on consulting on what is possible and what would have the greatest impact. For several weeks we have been talking to global suppliers about how to meet the needs of the market,» she said. Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and several influential American politicians also called for a ban on importing Russian oil. «We can not restrain Putin with Russian oil in our cars,» stated Ed Markey, the Democratic Senator. Earlier, the United States Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, stated that the USA is “very interested in the degradation of the Russian energy sector” and reducing dependence on Russian energy in the long run.On March 3, the US Senate introduced a bill called "Heroiam Slava” to impose large-scale sanctions against all Russian state-owned enterprises. The sanctions include a ban on access to the US capital market for Russian state-owned companies such as Rosneft, Gazprom, Rosatom, Aeroflot, and RT.On March 1, the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced a ban on the import of Russian oil.