Not winning...
Posted on 04/05/2022 10:22:44 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
The United States stopped the Russian government on Monday from paying holders of its sovereign debt more than $600 million from reserves held at U.S. banks, in a move meant to ratchet up pressure on Moscow and eat into its holdings of dollars.
Under sanctions put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, foreign currency reserves held by the Russian central bank at U.S. financial institutions were frozen.
But the Treasury Department had been allowing the Russian government to use those funds to make coupon payments on dollar-denominated sovereign debt on a case-by-case basis.
On Monday, as the largest of the payments came due, including a $552.4 million principal payment on a maturing bond, the U.S. government decided to cut off Moscow's access to the frozen funds, according to a U.S. Treasury spokesperson.
An $84 million coupon payment was also due on Monday on a 2042 sovereign dollar bond .
The move was meant to force Moscow to make the difficult decision of whether it would use dollars that it has access to for payments on its debt or for other purposes, including supporting its war effort, the spokesperson said.
Russia faces a historic default if it chooses to not do so.
"Russia must choose between draining remaining valuable dollar reserves or new revenue coming in, or default," the spokesperson said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), which had been processing payments as a correspondent bank so far, was stopped by the Treasury, a source familiar with the matter said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Insanity.
Taking sides in tbis piss ante war makes no sense. None.
Go sanctions! Go Biden!
If your first name was either Hunter or Big Guy, you got paid. The rest? Not so much!
Why would you make a payment. It’s not like heir financial ties and banking relationships are ever coming back. We simply stole 600 billion and that’s the end of it.
We’ll see if it was worth it when US bond holders and hedge funds don’t get paid.
I don’t see why they would drain what reserves they have. The west imposed the restriction on them, since the west changed the terms, Russia would not seem obligated to follow the terms of the screwing.
It's like a landlord demanding a rent payment from a commercial tenant ... after the landlord basically put the tenant out of business by tearing up the parking lot and the sidewalk in front of the building.
Theft and Piracy by the US Government.
Pretty much.
The Russians have given instructions to pay. The only reason to refuse access to those funds is if someone has already spent them.
Umm ok. I think we should side with the country that’s being invaded by Russia
Not to mention how every other country in the world will look at this. The risk of keeping cash and gold reserves in the USA just went way up.
Here’s the question. If your mission was to destroy the US and world economy to usher in a new system so you could “build back better”, what would you do differently?
I hope the people who post this stuff don’t understand the ramifications. If they do, and cheer it on anyway, we’re in deeper trouble than I thought.
Force majeure.
You misunderstand. Now is the time to complete the destruction of of the Russian plague
LOL! Russia wants to make the payments to its western creditors - and made bond payments a week ago.
Now the USA is going to force them to default by blocking even those payments
The mask has come off
Putin voted for this by invading Ukraine. Consequences.
Not a thing and I doubt the cheerleaders understand this.
It looks like the battle between Xenophobia and rational thinking on FR is a close call...
:-(
Default on the T-Bills. That would do it more efficeintly.
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