U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo speaks during an address at Brown University, March 15, 2022, in Providence, R.I. Just days before Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, President Joe Biden quietly dispatched a team to European Union headquarters in Belgium. Raimondo said what ultimately drove the agreement to an export ban and the groundwork to immobilize about half the foreign holdings of Russia's central bank, was the threat of Putin's imminent attack on Ukraine. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
