President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that the U.S. will ban imports of oil and gas from Russia.
- Biden warned that this could mean even higher prices at the gas pump.
- “This is a step that we are taking to inflict further pain on Putin, but there will be costs as well here in the United States,” Biden said from the White House. “I said I will level with the American people from the beginning. When I first spoke to this, I said defending freedom is going to cost. It is going to cost us as well in the United States…Republicans and Democrats alike have been clear that we must do this.”
- Biden added, “many of our European allies and partners may not be in a position to join us. The United States produces far more oil domestically than all of the European countries combined.”
- According to ABC News, around 8% of the U.S.'s oil imports came from Russia last year.
The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is already being felt in the United States -- and it's only going to get worse.
- That’s according to President Joe Biden, who admits his decision to stop Russian oil from being imported into the U.S. is going to cost Americans plenty. "The decision today is not without cost here at home,” he says. “Putin’s war is already hurting American families at the gas pump. Since Putin began his military build-up at the Ukrainian border, just since then, the price of gas in America went up 75 cents. With this action it’s going to go up further.”
- Biden promises he’ll do everything in his power to “minimize Putin’s price hike here at home.”
- Should the U.S. government put its own residents first when making decisions like this?
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