push back ..from the BRICS ..is starting ,folks !
From RIA:
"We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds – more than $200 billion – and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner,” he said. “We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency and leave the US market.”To be sure, a high-ranking Kremlin source was quick to distance his office from Glazyev’s remarks, however, insisting to RIA Novosti that they represented only his personal position. Glazyev was just expressing his views as an academic, and not as a presidential adviser, the Kremlin insider said.
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US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday warned that Russian military interventions in Ukraine, which have been justified by the Kremlin as protection for residents in heavily ethnic Russian-populated regions, could result in “serious repercussions” for Moscow.
"Unless immediate and concrete steps are taken by Russia to deescalate tensions, the effect on US-Russian relations and on Russia's international standing will be profound," Kerry said.
Kerry mentioned economic sanctions, visa bans and asset freezes as possible measures.
Former deputy energy minister and lively government critic Vladimir Milov slammed Glazyev’s remarks, saying they would put further downward pressure on the ruble, which was pushed down Monday to a record low of 36.5 against the dollar amid fears about the possible outbreak of war.
“That idiot Glazyev will keep talking until the dollar is worth 60 [rubles],” Milov wrote on his Twitter account.
That said, putting Russia's threat in context, the Federation held $138.6 billion in US Treasurys as of December according to the latest TIC data, making it the 11th largest creditor of the US, which appears to conflict with what the Russian said, making one wonder where there is a disconnect in "data." This would mean the Fed would need just two months of POMO to gobble up whatever bonds Russia has to sell.
The bigger question is if indeed, as some have suggested, China were to ally with Russia, and proceed to follow Russia in its reciprocal isolation of the US, by expanding trade with Russia on non-USD based terms, and also continue selling bonds as it did in December, when as we reported previously it dumped the second largest amount of US paper in history.
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