Seizing Russian Assets: If Not Now, When?

From Hess and Mott, in Foreign Policy
, on stifling further Russian aggression even with Trump on the gates: 

… there is another way that Ukraine’s defense can be financed. In 2022, the G-7 and its allies froze roughly $300 billion of Russian sovereign assets, rendering them inaccessible to President Vladimir Putin. But while the United States and Canada have moved to seize these assets and make them available to Ukraine, Europe has yet to confiscate the approximately $220 billion in its jurisdiction. To motivate Europe to stand on its own in the era of Trump, President Joe Biden should set the precedent for sovereign seizure and confiscate the estimated $4-5 billion of Russian assets in the United States’ jurisdiction.

Congress has already given the United States the authority to do so, as part of the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act (REPO) that became law in April. However, the Biden administration has refused to exercise that power until Europe passes similar legislation.

But Europe has demurred, citing negative impacts to the euro…

The paper cites McCauley, Chinn and Ito (2024) in favor of the view there is little to fear in terms of flight from the dollar — at least from the imposition of sanctions (fear of Trump disruption is another matter).See also Sandbu’s op-ed from two days ago, in the FT. Some reasoning behind the reluctance to seize Russian assets in this working paper. The comparison is made between seizure and no-seizure (where the cost in terms of higher interest rate costs to US Treasury outweighs value of seized assets in two years). Without taking any issue with the modeling, the counterfactual might be seizure and Ukraine surviving vs. no seizure and Ukraine conceding or falling. I’m not sure how to value the cost of Ukraine conceding, and encouraging further Russian adventurism.More By This Author:EggsU.S. Tariff Pass-Through On Chinese Imports Is High Instantaneous Core And Supercore Inflation For November