U.S. Treasury Targets Russia's Evasion, Warns China on Sanctions

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo will visit Berlin to advocate for tighter sanctions against Russia and address China's role in helping Russia evade Western sanctions. Adeyemo will meet with German officials and business leaders to discuss using frozen Russian assets for Ukraine’s benefit and taking further action against Russia's military industrial supply chains.

U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo will call for further action to stem Russia's evasion of Western sanctions and deliver a warning on China's role in a visit to Berlin this week, a U.S. Treasury Department official told Reuters on Tuesday.

The visit to Germany, first reported by Reuters, comes as Washington has stepped up warnings about China's role in Russia's evasion of measures imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. Adeyemo will meet with senior German officials and business leaders. He will discuss tightening sanctions against Russia, assistance to Ukraine and efforts to use frozen Russian assets to benefit Ukraine, according to a statement seen by Reuters.

In a speech on Friday, Adeyemo will make clear that further action is needed to ensure that firms across the sanctions coalition are not supplying Russia's military industrial base and to crack down on evasion through third countries, the official said. "Adeyemo will outline additional steps that must be taken moving forward to degrade Russia's war machine, including by disrupting its military industrial supply chains and making clear the significant consequences that its suppliers face," the statement said.

At the event, co-hosted by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Atlantik-Brucke, Adeyemo will highlight the Russian economy's shift to "war footing," which the statement said is enabled by the shipment of dual-use goods from China and poses a threat to Europe. Dual-use goods have both civilian and military purposes. Adeyemo will also highlight a December executive order that threatened sanctions on financial institutions helping Russia skirt western sanctions, according to the statement.

In April, a U.S. official told Reuters the U.S. had preliminarily discussed sanctions on some Chinese banks but did not yet have a plan to implement such measures. Washington and its allies have imposed thousands of sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine and the U.S. has since been trying to stop Russia from circumventing the measures, including by cracking down on evasion through the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China.

White House Deputy National Security Adviser For International Economics Daleep Singh on Tuesday said the U.S. and its partners are prepared to use sanctions and export controls to prevent China-Russia trade that threatens their security amid the ongoing Ukraine war.

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