Biden funding Putin's war

 Helen Raleigh:

Until Joe Biden Lets U.S. Oil Freely Flow, He’s Complicit In Putin’s War 

Not sanctioning Russia’s energy sector neutralizes other western sanctions and damages the credibility of the U.S. and our European allies.

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 No doubt, the latest round of western sanctions has caused some damage to Russia’s economy. But they are not as effective as they could have been because Russia’s energy sector is exempted. Russia’s energy companies continue to export oil and gas worldwide, making phenomenal profit due to skyrocketing energy prices, and evade sanctions by bringing badly needed foreign currencies back to Russia. 

The energy sector plays the most vital role in Russia’s economy, which is about the size of South Korea’s. Russia’s energy sector accounts for 14 percent of the country’s GDP. The country is the world’s largest natural-gas exporter and one of the main oil suppliers. Revenue from the energy sector has helped Russia accumulate $630 billion in foreign exchange reserves in recent years and contributed to more than 40 percent of the country’s federal budget.

A study by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a think tank based in Germany, shows that an “embargo on gas would drag Russia’s GDP down by nearly 3 percent and halting imports and exports of crude oil would result in a slump of more than 1 percent.” However, by leaving Russia’s energy sector alone, current western sanctions may knock out Russia’s GDP by only 1 percent.

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 As a Wall Street Journal editorial points out, “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a 3 a.m. wake-up call to President Biden and America’s liberal political class: Cease your war on U.S. energy. Europe’s climate obsessions have rendered it vulnerable to Putin’s extortion, and the U.S. is in danger of repeating that tragic mistake.”

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The idiocy of Biden's energy policy has been exposed, but Biden is sticking with it.