As Prepared for Delivery
Prime Minister De Croo, I was pleased to welcome you to the Treasury Department today. We met to discuss important policy priorities during Belgium’s ongoing six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Chief among them is our work to provide support to Ukraine, to counter Russia’s war of aggression, and to unlock the value of immobilized Russian sovereign assets to benefit Ukraine.
During the Belgian presidency, EU member states have not only secured a multi-year 50-billion-euro Ukraine Facility to help meet Ukraine’s budget financing needs. They have also established a windfall stream for Ukraine from income earned on Russian sovereign assets immobilized in European central securities depositories. Belgium has already committed its share of earnings from taxes on such income for Ukraine’s benefit this year.
I congratulate you on these achievements, especially the windfall measure, as we consider more ambitious options, including proposals to bring forward future windfall proceeds to get more money to Ukraine now.
Last week, G7 Finance Ministers met in Italy and made significant progress in discussing these proposals, and we will continue intensive discussions ahead of the G7 Leaders’ Summit. I believe our entire coalition realizes that we are now in a battle of wills with Russia and that we must demonstrate unequivocally that our support for Ukraine will not waver.
We also discussed ongoing coordination with Europe and other partners towards a united response to Chinese industrial overcapacity.
China’s macroeconomic imbalances, exacerbated by Chinese government support to the manufacturing sector, can lead to overcapacity that can significantly exceed both domestic and global demand, including in critical sectors. This can result in artificially cheap Chinese exports that can undermine key investments we’re making at home in our economic strength, as well as the viability of firms and workers around the world.
We have seen this happen in the past and will not accept it happening again.
I appreciated our robust discussion and look forward to continued collaboration.
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