Reading News for You: US Senate approves new sanctions on Russia, Iran
Friday, June 16, 2017
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| Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said the bill would prevent any attempt by President Donald Trump to unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia (AFP Photo/Zach Gibson) |
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US Senate approves new sanctions on Russia, Iran
Washington (AFP) - The
US Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed tough sanctions on Russia and Iran,
sending the House of Representatives a bill that would prevent President Donald
Trump from unilaterally easing penalties against Moscow.
The measure, which
passed on a 98-2 vote, seeks to make Tehran pay a price for its "continued
support of terrorism."
It also aims to punish
Russia's Vladimir Putin for interfering in last year's US election, and to make
it tougher for the White House to roll back sanctions.
US intelligence chiefs
have concluded that Russia orchestrated a campaign to undermine the American
election process that included espionage and cyber-attacks, as a means to tilt
the vote in Trump's favor.
"Not only did we
pass a new round of tough sanctions for Russia's meddling in our election, we
codified existing sanctions into law, making them harder to lift, and we moved
to make Congress -- not the president -- the final arbiter of sanctions relief
when necessary," top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said before the vote.
"Any idea of the
president's that he can lift sanctions on his own for whatever reason are
dashed by this legislation."
The bill as originally
introduced was exclusively about slapping new sanctions on Iran. But lawmakers
attached a bipartisan amendment on Russia to it early this week.
The addition came with
the White House deeply embroiled in crisis over whether Trump's campaign team
colluded with a Russian effort to sway the 2016 election.
The measure would require
a green light from Congress in the event sanctions on Russia are relaxed,
suspended or terminated.
It would codify in law
the sanctions imposed by executive decree by Trump's predecessor Barack Obama,
especially against the Russian energy industry.
- 'Strong' legislation
-
And it would impose
new sanctions on "corrupt Russian actors," those implicated in
serious human rights abuses or who supply weapons to Bashar al-Assad's regime
in Syria, and people who conduct "malicious cyber activity" on behalf
of the Russian state.
"This is a very,
very strong piece of legislation," Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chairman Bob Corker said on the Senate floor.
Corker, too, sounded
pleased that the bill effectively ties a president's hands when it comes to
unwinding certain sanctions on Russia.
"Today the United
States Senate is asserting its responsibilities" regarding foreign policy,
he added.
The
sanctions follow the scandalous departure of Michael Flynn as Trump's national
security advisor.
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