Speaking before the Brussels Economic Forum May 17, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen advised the U.S. ‘s “allies and partners” to prepare to offer large amounts of financial aid to Ukraine, because the help pledged so far is insufficient. It won’t even meet short-term needs, she warned. Ukraine will need “massive support and private investment for reconstruction and recovery, akin to the task of rebuilding in Europe after 1945,” she intoned, to help pay the salaries of soldiers, employees, civil servants and pensioners, and to restore critical utilities, infrastructure, and services. Yellen took this same appeal to the meeting of the G-7 Finance Ministers, meeting today and tomorrow at Koenigswinter, Germany, telling attendees that Ukraine needed at least $5 billion a month, for a total package of $500 billion. Commitments have already been forthcoming from Germany and the United Kingdom. (Afghanis might wonder about this “largesse.”)
Yellen, who served as chair of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors from 2014-2018, used her geopolitical tract at Brussels to rail against Russia and China. She warned that, should Vladimir Putin continue the war against Ukraine, Washington will work with European and other partners “to push Russia further towards economic, financial, and strategic isolation.” Referring to both Russia and China, she decried the West’s vulnerability to “countries using their market positions in raw materials, technologies or products to exercise geopolitical leverage or disrupt markets for their own gain.”
