Biden administration freezes billions of dollars in Afghan reserves, depriving Taliban of cash
Source: WaPo
The Biden administration on Sunday froze Afghan government reserves held in U.S. bank accounts, blocking the Taliban from accessing billions of dollars held in U.S. institutions, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The decision was made by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and officials in Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the people said. The State Department was also involved in discussions this weekend, with officials in the White House monitoring the developments. An administration official said in a statement, “Any Central Bank assets the Afghan government have in the United States will not be made available to the Taliban.” The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss government policy not yet made public.
Cutting off access to U.S.-based reserves represents among the first in what is expected to prove several crucial decisions facing the Biden administration about the economic fate of that nation following the Taliban takeover. Afghanistan is already one of the poorest countries in the world and is highly dependent on American aid that is now in jeopardy. The Biden administration is also likely to face hard choices over how to manage existing sanctions on the Taliban, which may make it difficult to deliver international humanitarian assistance to a population facing ruin, experts say.
The Afghan central bank held $9.4 billion in reserve assets as of April, according to the International Monetary Fund. That amounts to roughly one third of the country’s annual economic output. The vast majority of those reserves are not currently held in Afghanistan, one of the people familiar with the matter said. Among those, billions of dollars are kept in the U.S., although the precise amount is unclear.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/08/17/treasury-taliban-money-afghanistan/
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TFG, or anyone working for TFG, would never have thought of that, costing the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars and untold embarrassment around the world.
Good on 'ya, Joe & Co. Good on 'ya.