Alexandra Alper, Karen Freifeld

WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – If Russia invades Ukraine further, the Biden administration may deprive the country of a large swathe of low-and high-tech U.S.- and foreign-made products, including commercial electronics, computers, semiconductors, and parts for aircraft, according to people who are familiar with the situation.

According to people, President Joe Biden will achieve this by mandating that all companies wishing to send a larger list of goods to Russia get licenses from the United States. Then, his administration would refuse those licenses.

These measures are not previously disclosed and form part of an initial set of sanctions that the United States prepared for Russia to harm its economy. They include everything lasers, telecoms equipment, as well as maritime products.

The Commerce Department overseeing U.S. export control controls did not immediately reply to our request for comment.

While the details of the package were still being refined and may change over the weekend, some White House officials promised to spare Russian consumers the worst consequences.

In a speech, Peter Harrell (who sits on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council) stated that the goal of export control measures was to “degrade Russia’s capability to have industrial production within a few key sectors.” He added that they are now focusing on how to degrade Russia’s industrial production, and high-tech industries rather than on how to attack the Russian people at large.

In response to the massing of Russian troops at Ukraine’s borders, the Obama administration promised that it would hit Moscow with powerful sanctions on banking and exports.

Reuters reports that on Saturday, the Biden administration prepared a first package of sanctions against Russia. This includes preventing U.S. financial institutions processing Russian bank transactions.

The rollout of their troops is more probable after Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two separatist regions in Ukraine and instructed Russia’s defense ministry that they would deploy troops into these regions to maintain peace. This was further escalating tension with the West about Ukraine.

One of the largest measures contained in the first export controls package was to take cues from the former restrictions placed on Chinese telecom company Huawei Technologies Co Ltd by Donald Trump. This would significantly expand the reach of the Foreign Direct Product Rule. It requires that all firms using U.S. technology to produce overseas technology must obtain a U.S. licence before they can ship them to Russia.

Kevin Wolf, an ex-official at the U.S. Department of Commerce in Washington said: “It is extraordinarily new and could prove to be much more significant than just controls on exports of such items from the United States.”

Many chips are produced with U.S.-made equipment. This gives America leverage over Russia to regulate the flow of electronic devices to Russia.

U.S. suppliers will also need to apply for licenses for Russia-bound goods that are not required currently, like civil aviation parts. Although it remains to see if Europe follows suit, authorities on both sides said that they had prepared a coordinated response.

Changes to the package would see license applications subject to a “policy or denial” review standard. This means only in very rare circumstances would administration grant them.

Russian entities, which are listed among the so-called military users because of their connections to Russia’s military (including a few aircraft producers), would also be added to the trade blacklist, known as the entity List. This would increase the number of items that companies will need to be licensed.

Additionally, the Administration would increase the number of products to which the United States would have to approve in order for them to go to Russian military ends users.