Russia Secondary Sanctions Bill Would ‘Pass Today’ If Voted On, Lawmaker Says
The U.S. should quickly move forward with new secondary sanctions against supporters of Russia, government leaders and think tank officials said this week, and they urged the EU to do more to hold Beijing accountable for helping Russia evade sanctions.
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Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., speaking at the NATO Public Forum this week in the Netherlands, said she believes Congress is ready to approve a bill that would impose a wide range of sanctions on Russia and its supporters if Moscow refuses to reach a peace deal with Ukraine, including a 500% tariff on imported goods from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and other products (see 2504020003).
The bill has 82 co-sponsors, and “there's almost nothing in the United States Senate that gets 82 sponsors,” Shaheen said. “So that is an indication of just how strong the support is. And I think if the leadership would take it up today, it would pass today.”
Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said congressional leadership hasn’t yet scheduled a vote because lawmakers are waiting for word from the Trump administration. She said the bill would impose “draconian secondary sanctions on countries that help Russia,” and she urged Trump to “encourage the leadership in the Senate and House to pass the legislation.”
“I think we want to see a nod from the White House,” she said. “I hope that President Trump will understand that this is a benefit to him. It gives him more leverage in trying to get Russia to the negotiating table. And if others don't like it, he can blame Congress.”
Several EU government officials during the forum also mentioned the bill, including Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Caspar Veldkamp, who called it a “very strong sanctions package.”
“I hope the U.S. will ramp up this pressure,” he said. “They really, I believe, need to move forward hand-in-hand with the European Union and increase the pressure on Russia to really come to the [negotiating] table.”
Frederick Kempe, president of the Atlantic Council, said lawmakers are “just waiting for the president to say, ‘yes, please go ahead with this.’”
Kempe added that Donald Trump -- who has been hesitant to impose new sanctions on Russia as his administration tries to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Ukraine (see 2506110046) -- may be more willing to finally pressure Russia based on the recent “lesson” he learned from helping Iran and Israel reach a ceasefire, which is to be “decisive about peace.”
Trump has “set peace limits for [Vladimir] Putin, and Putin's just been ignoring him,” Kempe said. “Now may be the moment for him to say, look, President Putin, if you're not willing to come to the peace table,” then “perhaps we're going to have to do a little bit more to ensure that Ukraine gets what it needs and that we're sending the right message.”
Veldkamp stressed that the EU should also increase its sanctions pressure on Russia “if we really want these negotiations to bring fruit and move forward.” He applauded the EU’s most recent 17th sanctions package (see 2505200057) and said the bloc is getting closer to finalizing a new package of measures that would target more Russian banks, companies, and shadow fleet vessels (see 2506100074).
He said he believes the EU will approve the package before the end of June.
“We always need to bring everyone on board, and that's a lot of diplomatic work behind the scenes,” Veldkamp said. “I think we'll get there.”
He also called on the EU to continue sanctioning Chinese companies shipping sensitive electronics and industrial parts to Russia, and to do more to make it harder for Russia to source goods from Iran and North Korea.
“We see Iran and North Korea delivering weapons, Chinese companies delivering goods that end up in weapons Russia uses in Ukraine,” Veldkamp said. “We really want to underline and convince others that it is important to stand together in this diplomatic struggle.”
Liana Fix, Europe fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it appears as if the EU has “basically stopped pressuring China over its support for Russia's war.” She said “80% of sanctions evasion towards Russia goes through China,” and Beijing has “flirted” with sending lethal weapons to Russia, “if not even overstepped the line.”
Fix added that the EU may not be able to wait to coordinate with Washington on new measures against China for aiding Russia, saying the Trump administration has been too unpredictable. “There is no China policy -- coherent China policy -- at the moment coming out from Washington,” she said. “Europe should think about China as an economic and a security threat,” although she said that isn’t the view in every European capital.
“That, to me, is the actual disappointment.”