Rep. Budd to Newsmax: Russia Should Face Ban From SWIFT Network

Russia should have already been cut off from the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) network even before it launched its attack on Ukraine, and it's vital that Moscow's access be stopped, Rep. Ted Budd, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said on Newsmax Thursday.

"We want to be taking a specific interest in the SWIFT network and Russia's ability to use that," the North Carolina Republican said on Newsmax's "John Bachman Now." "Yes, they have been developing their own systems since 2014, but the global standard is the SWIFT network, so we should cut them off from that as soon as possible. It should have already been done days before, and perhaps it would have limited their ability to project power."

SWIFT is an electronic payment messaging system that is used by banks and financial systems worldwide by more than 11,000 institutions in more than 200 countries —including Russia — to facilitate money transfer orders and information.

According to SWIFT, the United Nations and its members can vote to limit access to the system through placing international sanctions, such as in 2012-2016, when Iran's banks were cut off from the network because of its nuclear program.

However, cutting Russia off from SWIFT could have serious consequences for other nations because of the size of the Russian economy, reports The New York Times.

"The Russian economy is a different beast," Adam Smith, a senior sanctions official in the Obama administration's Treasury Department, told the newspaper. "It is twice the size of any economy the U.S. has ever sanctioned."

"Banking and insurance are front and center for what I do in committee, so we want to take a specific interest in the SWIFT network and Russia's ability to use that."

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chair of the House Committee on Intelligence, has also said he would back SWIFT sanctions against Russia, and Budd said that is one issue, out of "very little" that he'd agree on with Schiff, as it's a "nonpartisan issue."

Budd also pointed out to Newsmax that there are more threats than just that from Russia to Ukraine, but also from China toward Taiwan and from North Korea, when asked to comment on whether Congress would favor a request from President Joe Biden for more money for the Defense Department, after Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., told Newsmax earlier that Congress would be "sympathetic."

"We're concerned about Iran, spinning up their centrifuges and being months away from their own nuclear weapon, which is a major threat not just to the world, but specifically to Iran," said Budd. "This is about not just the security for America. This is about restrengthening us from a weak position that Joe Biden put us in back in August."

However, Biden's "terrible anti-energy policy" has led to Russia's ability to project power, he continued.

"It's increased the price of oil globally," said Budd, which has allowed Russia to have "sidelined $600 billion to be able to fight [Ukraine] and provide for their own nation. That would not have been possible with a pro-energy policy. With us being net exporters like we were, we could have provided Europe some of the natural gas rather than leaning on Nord Stream 2, as Germany and so much of Europe does."

The congressman also insisted that the current situation with Ukraine would not be happening if former President Donald Trump was still in office.

"We would not have been having these four major global concerns, particularly what we're seeing in the last 24 hours with Russia invading Ukraine," said Budd.

The congressman remembered back to 1991 when he was in Europe during the breakup of the former Soviet Union.

"I was there seeing what the strength of [Ronald] Reagan and George H.W. Bush did in their posture to break up the Soviet Union and see the Iron Curtain collapse," said Budd. "I was in Moscow and then traveled to Kyiv in 1991. I had a Russian name tag on and just to see the animosity from Ukrainians — that there would actually be Russian written on my name tag — was palpable, so they had no love lost for the Russians even back then."

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