U.S. President Joe Biden during a a reception celebrating Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in the Rose Garden of the White House, in Washington, U.S., May 13, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

U.S. President Joe Biden signed into law a ban on Russian enriched uranium on Monday, May 13, 2024, the White House said, in the latest effort by Washington to disrupt President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The ban on imports of the fuel for nuclear power plants begins in about 90 days, although it allows the Department of Energy to issue waivers in case of supply concerns.

Russia is the world’s top supplier of enriched uranium, and about 24% of the enriched uranium used by U.S. nuclear power plants come from the country.

The law also unlocks about $2.7 billion in funding in previous legislation to build out the U.S. uranium fuel industry.

“Today, President Biden signed into law a historic series of actions that will strengthen our nation’s energy and economic security by reducing, and ultimately eliminating, our reliance on Russia for civilian nuclear power,” Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said in a statement.

Mr. Sullivan said the law “delivers on multilateral goals we have set with our allies and partners,” including a pledge last December with Canada, France, Japan and the United Kingdom to collectively invest $4.2 billion to expand enrichment and conversion capacity of uranium.

The waivers, if implemented by the Energy Department, allow all the Russian uranium imports the U.S. normally imports through 2027.

Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, said that Washington’s decision is leading to shocks in global economic relations, but will not bring the desired results.

“The delicate balance between exporters and importers of uranium products is being disrupted,” the Russian embassy in Washington cited Antonov as saying in a post on its Telegram messaging channel.

“Life has confirmed that the Russian economy is ready for any challenges and quickly responds to emerging difficulties, even extracting dividends from the situation. It will be so this time too.”

Washington:

To address the growing challenge posed by China, it is important not to let Russia fall into Beijing’s lap, Indian-American Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said on Thursday, asserting that if elected, he would achieve this goal by offering a “deal” with Moscow.

Mr Ramaswamy told Fox News that as a US president, he would offer to freeze the current lines of control between Ukraine and Russia, make a hard commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine into it and lift sanctions. In return, Russia would have to exit its military alliance with China, he said.

“Very clear vision. I would do a deal that (Vladimir) Putin would say yes to but that actually advances American interests so that the United States wins. Here’s what I would do,” Mr Ramaswamy said when asked how he would stop the war in Ukraine.

“I would freeze the current lines of control. I would further make a hard commitment that NATO will not admit Ukraine to NATO. That’s enough to get Putin to do the deal. But I will require something even greater in return,” the 38-year-old multimillionaire biotech entrepreneur said.

“Russia has to exit its military alliances with China. Right now, we’re pushing Russia further into China’s hands. The Russia-China military alliance is the single greatest threat that the United States faces today. And so just as Nixon did it in 1972, I’ll do it in reverse,” Mr Ramaswamy said.

“Pull Russia apart from China, and by the way, get Russia to also remove its military presence in the Western Hemisphere. Get out of the Western Hemisphere. Reopen economic relations with Russia, that’s how we do it,” he added.

The Indian-American presidential aspirant said the reason why China is more valuable today is because the US has wrongfully cut off Russia from the West by bombing the Nord Stream one and two pipelines and also sanctioning Russia.

“So if we can reopen the Western economic relations with Russia, Russia has less of a reason to be in partnership with China. There are also cracks in the armour of that relationship if you look closely,” he said.

“Russia actually sent weapons both to India and to Vietnam, both of which border China. They are sending a signal that China wants to build a railroad in northeast China to get to the ocean. Russia won’t let them. So there are cracks in that armour now,” he asserted.

Meanwhile, another Indian-origin Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley slammed Mr Ramaswamy for his comments that he was against using US military force against Iran.

“We will not stop Israel from defending itself to the fullest capacity. And we remain supportive of Israel because they are our friend,” Mr Ramaswamy had told the Israel Hayom.

“I think it’s really important that the US not put our own men and women on the line in a war with Iran, when in fact, there’s no reason for us to be in that kind of war now, and I don’t think that’s good for the United States, and I don’t think that’s good for Israel. But what we do need to do is to make sure that Israel is strong so that Iran isn’t emboldened,” Mr Ramaswamy told the Israeli newspaper.

“Vivek must have missed that the fanatical terrorist regime in Iran regularly calls for ‘Death to America,'” Haley said in a statement.

“If he doesn’t see a nuclear Iran as a threat to American security, then he should take his place beside AOC and the Squad and get nowhere near the White House,” she said, referring to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of eight Democratic members of the US House of Representatives known as the Squad.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)