Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was first elected to the United States Senate in 1972 at the age of twenty-nine and is recognized as one of the nation's most powerful and influential voices on foreign relations, terrorism, drug policy, and crime prevention.
Photo: biden.senate.gov
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U.S. Apprehensive of Russia’s Sovereign Wealth
The recent statements of U.S. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who chairs the Committee on Foreign Relations, signal that the White House and the National Intelligence regard the growing financial wealth of Russia a serous threat to the national security of the United States.
Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the necessary tasks for developing policy towards sovereign wealth funds Wednesday, in time of full committee hearing on “Sovereign Wealth Funds: Foreign Policy Consequences in an Era of New Money.”
Biden drew attention to the threat of sovereign wealth funds accumulated by Russia, China and some other nations and specified that it was exacerbated by poor U.S. energy and trade policy. The huge wealth built up by those nations in their sovereign funds enable them to invest overseas, including in big and strategic companies of the U.S. economy.
Quite a few highest-ranked officials in the White House deem the sovereign funds a serious threat, the senator made clear, recalling the February testimony of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, who had expressed clear concern about the financial capacity of Russia, China and OPEC and the potential use of the access to their markets for attaining political aims, calling it a big problem for the U.S. national security.
The senator urged to elaborate a strategy to reveal sovereign funds attempting to attain their political aims through assets. Joe Biden mentioned Russia, of course, saying it could have used its fund for strategic purpose when eyeing acquisition of a sizeable stake in the parent corporation that owns Airbus.
During the hearing, it was specified that Russia had set to aggressively injecting money in economies of other nations. Its direct investments in overseas economies surged 5.6 fold from 2000 through 2006.
www.kommersant.com
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