Senate Democrats Renew Call to Update Russia Sanctions to Prevent Evasion
Three Senate Democrats urged the Trump administration July 3 to restart regular updates of sanctions and export controls against Chinese and other entities helping Russia’s war machine.
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In a joint statement, Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a senior member of Foreign Relations, said that such routine revisions are needed to counter the evasion of U.S. restrictions.
President Donald Trump "has blocked regular updates to our sanctions and export controls for five months and counting -- enabling a growing wave of evaders in China and around the world to continue supplying Russia’s war machine,” the statement said. “The failure to use our existing tools weakens our pressure campaign, enriches bad actors, and emboldens [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to keep fighting” against Ukraine.
The senators said the administration “should join our European partners in tightening sanctions to bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table. The only way to secure a just and lasting peace is to demonstrate resolve alongside our G7 partners and show Putin that the costs will only increase so long as he continues his brutal assault on innocent Ukrainians.”
A senior administration official described the senators' statement as "fake news." The administration "has not lifted sanctions; all sanctions remain in effect, and there has been no change to our sanctions policy in regard to Russia," the official said in an email.
Jeffrey Kessler, head of the Bureau of Industry and Security, told a House panel in June that “there hasn’t been any pause” in actions toward Russia (see 2506120073). “If we identify Russian parties that we believe should be added to the Entity List, we would do that.”
The senators made a similar push to restart sanctions updates in a May letter to Secretary of State and acting National Security Adviser Marco Rubio (see 2505070024).