As Joe Biden revels in a series of legislative victories in Washington, events in Moscow remind the US president that his troubles may be just beginning.
On Monday, United Co Rusal International PJSC, an aluminum producer listed in Moscow and Hong Kong, raised US$590 million in a first-of-its-kind debt sale in Russia. The reason it matters for Biden’s White House: the bonds were denominated in yuan.
Gazprombank, the lead manager of the deal, said it received about 100 orders from asset managers, banks, investment and insurance companies, and individuals.
It remains to be seen if such transactions amount to death by a thousand cuts to the US dollar. Yet the trend is emblematic of how economic policy errors are colliding with global reactions to Western sanctions on Moscow for its Ukraine invasion. The latter includes freezing hundreds of billions of dollars of Russia’s foreign currency reserves.