Sen. Tommy Tuberville joined Senators Jim Risch, John Cornyn, Rick Scott, Kevin Cramer, and Mike Braun in sending a letter to call on President Joe Biden to ban Russian companies from the United States financial system to ensure American investors are not invertedly providing capital to fund Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The Senate Republicans also asked for secondary sanctions to block China or other adversaries from helping Russia skirt the requested sanctions on the U.S financial system.
The letter states, “We write today urging you to protect American investors from unwittingly financing Vladimir Putin’s war crimes against Ukraine through their investments in index funds, ETFs, bonds, and other securities. Many Russian companies remain present in the U.S. financial system, posing a risk to investors and providing capital to the Kremlin’s war machine.”
The senators commended what the Biden administration had done already, but asked for more to be done. Specifically they are asking to:
- Impose capital markets sanctions on all Russian owned or controlled companies and entities present in the U.S. financial system and prohibit the trading of their securities on regulated U.S. exchanges.
- Establish secondary sanctions to deter China or any other nations, entities, or individuals from helping Russia circumvent sanctions.
“While we commend the actions being taken to remove Russian companies from U.S. markets, more must be done to ensure U.S. investors are not supporting Russian companies that currently enjoy access to U.S. capital markets,” the Senators wrote.
The Senators concluded,“To pressure Russia to reverse course and end its occupation of Ukraine, all appropriate economic tools must be brought to bear.”
