If President Joe Biden wants to have an immediate impact on Russian President Vladimir Putin, he'd announce that he's restarting the United States' energy industry and that he's going to export oil and natural gas to Europe so Russia's revenues would be cut, K.T. McFarland, a deputy national security adviser under ex-President Donald Trump, told Newsmax Thursday.
"He then goes back to Putin and says, I am going to drive the price of oil back down to where it was, $40 a barrel, where American companies can make money and where you, Russia, are bankrupt," McFarland said on Newsmax's "National Report."
That would mean that rather than sanctions to block Putin's main revenue source in Europe, it would drive down his revenue to the point where he couldn't afford to keep the war on Ukraine going, said McFarland.
Meanwhile, Putin is looking to China to back his war against Ukraine and to buy Russian oil, but even though he and Chinese President Xi Jinping signed a joint friendship agreement at the beginning of the Bejing Olympics, China could be having other thoughts, said McFarland.
"You know the Chinese have gone around the world, saying we are the 21st century, we know how to govern in modern times," McFarland said. "The Chinese not only want to run the 21st century on their terms, but they also want to be seen as deserving to run the 21st century, and here they are stuck with a pariah, an international pariah wrapped around their neck."
That means the Chinese may look to distance themselves from Russia on the world stage in several ways, including playing a role as a peace broker between the two sides, she said.
"But this is what I think happens down the road," McFarland said. "The Chinese are going to buy up Russian territory and buy up Russian energy so that it won't be Chinese energy anymore. It'll all be Chinese and they'll evade the sanctions."
Meanwhile, the Biden administration, whether it's working with China or whoever must figure out an "off-ramp for this situation before it becomes World War III," said McFarland.
"Our goal here is to get Vladimir Putin to concede defeat and we have his unconditional surrender and he leaves Ukraine," she said. "He's not going to do that. He is not. He's not going down peacefully, and he can't afford to lose. He'll use tactical nuclear weapons, chemical weapons. Who knows?"
China, she added, may not have the military equipment to help Russia, but it does have the money, and "the Russians right now are really desperate."
"The Russians had about a trillion dollars in a rainy day fund that they kept in Western and international banks," said McFarland. "That all has been frozen. So the Russians are having a very desperate situation at home, and it's not just the sanctions.
"I mean, that affects the government. But what really affects the people of Russia is that independent companies have pulled out."
That means, for average Russians, that their money is worth half of what it is, and they can't go about their daily lives, McFarland said.
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