In an interview with CNBC’s White House correspondent, Kayla Tausche, today, Deputy Treasury Secretary Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo, boasted about the “significant pain” that U.S. and EU sanctions have inflicted on Russia, and the Russian people, while lying that they have had a “minimal effect” on the U.S. and its European allies. When Tausche pointed out some downsides to sanctions, such as the prices of critical minerals going up, or higher inflation and fuel prices, Adeyemo repeated that the U.S. and its allies “are willing to pay the cost to defend freedom,” adding, of course, that “we mitigate the cost as much as possible.”
Did he mean, Tausche asked, that the cost of blocking Russia’s export of those minerals, or blocking Russian ships from being on international waters (which would be an act of war) “is too high?” No, “not at all,” Adeyemo said. It just means that when those steps are taken, “we do it with an eye toward mitigation,” so that “constraining the Russian economy has a minimal effect on our economy.” Adeyemo, a longtime Democratic Party hack, has clearly mastered the art of using many words to say nothing. Asked whether Russia could access its reserves held by China, he replied that “China can’t give Russia what it doesn’t have,” and made a reference to semiconductors, avoiding mention of reserves altogether.
