President Biden on Friday banned imports of Russian alcohol, diamonds and seafood while making other trade more onerous — before saying in response to a question that Russia would “pay a severe price” for using chemical weapons in Ukraine.

Biden only addressed the possible use of chemical weapons — which the White House warned of Wednesday — when a journalist raised the topic and he completely avoided addressing intense pressure from Congress to help Ukraine acquire more fighter jets.

“The White House has said that Russia may use chemical weapons or create a false flag operation to use them,” a reporter shouted. “What evidence have you seen showing that and would the US have a military response if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does launch a chemical weapons attack?”

Biden replied, “I’m not going to speak about the intelligence, but Russia would pay a severe price if they use chemical weapons.”

The president didn’t detail the penalties for a chemical attack, but earlier in his remarks made clear that he would not deploy US troops to Ukraine because “direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.”

In addition to new bans on Russian alcohol, diamonds and seafood, Biden said he would yank Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status as the invasion of Ukraine enters its 16th day. That action will make it easier to apply tariffs on Russian goods that aren’t specifically banned.

Canada revoked most favored nation status for Russia and Belarus on March 2 and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pressed the US to take similar action in remarks to Congress over the weekend.

Get the latestupdatesin the Russia-Ukraine conflict with The Post’s live coverage.

The trade-status change is the fourth time in the course of the war that Biden has imposed sanctions in response to overwhelming bipartisan pressure.

Biden thanked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for delaying a congressional vote on the “favored nations” status change “until I could line up all of our key allies to keep us in complete unison.”

Biden on Tuesday announced an import ban on Russia oil, natural gas and coal — after Congress appeared poised to force him to do so. The president reportedly called Pelosi Monday night to beg for a delay, only to be rebuffed.

The energy sanctions cut off roughly 60 percent of America’s total imports from Russia. 

Biden announced initially limited sanctions against state-owned Russian banks and certain Russian businessmen when tanks rolled across Ukraine’s borders on Feb. 24. After criticism, Biden sanctioned Putin’s vast personal wealth and reached an agreement with US allies to partially unplug Russia from the SWIFT international banking system.

Biden said Friday that the European Union and members of the G-7, which includes Canada, Japan and the UK, will also help make it more difficult for Russia to borrow money in a bid to force Putin to change course as his troops move to encircle Ukraine’s largest cities.

“We’re going to continue to squeeze Putin. The G-7 will seek to deny Russia the ability to borrow from leading multinational institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Putin is an aggressor. He is the aggressor and Putin must pay the price,” Biden said.

The president also said his administration is preparing to target more wealthy Russians with sanctions that seize their assets and will ban the export of luxury goods to Russia.

Biden didn’t address his decision to halt Poland’s donation of fighter jets to Ukraine before he departed the White House for a trip to Philadelphia. Forty Republican senators wrote Biden a letter Thursday urging him to reconsider and several Democrats have been sharply critical of the decision as well.

Biden reportedly made the call to scrap the MiG transfer, overriding his Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said Sunday Poland had a “green light” to move forward. 

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that “our military experts … assessed was that adding aircraft to the inventory is not likely to significantly change the effectiveness of the Ukrainian Air Force relative to Russian capability.” 

Psaki added, “The Ukrainian Air Force has several squadrons of fully mission capable aircraft and although Russian air capabilities are significant, their effectiveness has been limited due to Ukrainian strategic operational and tactical ground-based air defense systems — surface to air missiles and MANPADS.”

But that decision was met by anger on Capitol Hill.

“There is bipartisan support to provide these planes,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday. “It is disappointing to see the reluctance on the part of the administration. It’s coming across as indecision and bickering among members of the administration, which is not helpful to the cause.”

“Time is of the essence,” said Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the committee’s chairman. “I understand why NATO and the United States are not engaged in a no-fly zone [in Ukraine]. That has potential [for] direct conflict with Russia, but I don’t understand why we are not working to facilitate planes to Ukraine.”

When the “favored nations” trade policy change takes effect, buyers of Russian goods would pay rates established under the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which disrupted trade during the Great Depression.

Favored nation status requires a country to treat all countries with that status the same.  Members of the World Trade Organization share that status, though some countries have special privileges due to their status as developing economies. North Korea and Cuba do not enjoy that status.

With Post wires