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Washington, D.C. – House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul (R-TX) has released the following statement in response to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s remarks on Friday that sanctioning the Chinese Communist Party’s support of Russia was not “necessary or appropriate” because “[s]enior administration officials are talking privately and quietly with China to make sure that they understand our position.”

“I’m extremely concerned by yet another public display of the Biden administration’s failure to grasp the growing threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party. There is simply no reason to believe that ‘talking privately and quietly with China’ will have any impact or stop their malign actions, including their ongoing complicity in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The CCP’s relentless assault on human rights, on democratic values, and on U.S. national security interests has proven they are not to be trusted. Taking sanctions off the table is the opposite of what the Biden administration should be saying right now. Rather than sticking to this failed approach, the President Biden and his advisors need to take decisive action to protect ourselves and our allies from their threat.”