Comments earlier this morning from a press conference during his visit to Malaysia
- any decision to impose “sectoral” sanctions on Russia would depend on whether the US and its allies could find a unified position on how to proceed
- it would be wrong to think that it would be effective if US went ahead alone without the Europeans on sectoral sanctions
- for example if US decides to ban certain arms sales to Russia it would be ineffective if European defence contractors “backfill” such sales
We’re going to be in a stronger position to deter Mr Putin when he sees that the world is unified, and the US and Europe is unified, rather than this just being a US-Russian conflict
The next round of sanctions are due to be announced as early as tomorrow (Monday) but are not expected to directly target sectors at this time.