Senate Democrats Call for Sanctioning China's New LNG Ties With Russia
Eight Senate Democrats led by Senate Banking Committee ranking member Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged the Trump administration Sept. 19 to sanction individuals and entities that have made China the first country to buy liquefied natural gas from the U.S.-sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project in Russia.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, the lawmakers said that U.S. sanctions under the Biden administration had forced the “flagship” project to halt operations last year (see 2409060015 and 2408230031). But in recent weeks, amid warming relations between Beijing and Moscow, China has begun taking deliveries from the project, “openly flouting U.S. sanctions” and possibly encouraging other countries to follow suit, the senators wrote.
“Energy analysts have warned that absent a swift and decisive response [by the U.S.], these first deliveries will signal to other potential buyers that they can buy sanctioned Russian LNG cargo without consequence, opening up the floodgates for Russia to receive tens of billions of dollars in revenue to fund its war machine and continue to kill Ukrainian civilians,” the letter says.
The letter also reiterates calls from Senate Democrats for the Trump administration to restart regular sanctions designations against Russia and its supporters (see 2508050069). It rejects claims that sanctions could derail peace negotiations with Russia, saying the Trump administration “has implemented more than 20 sanctions rollouts on Iran while maintaining talks or the prospect of negotiations” with Tehran.
The State Department declined to comment on the letter. The Treasury Department didn’t immediately respond to our request for comment.