WASHINGTON — The Trump administration says legislation passed last year to punish Russia for its aggressive behavior has been effective in hampering the country’s defense and intelligence sectors, negating the need for further sanctions.
“Sanctions on specific entities or individuals will not need to be imposed because the legislation is, in fact, serving as a deterrent,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Monday. President Trump reluctantly signed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) into law in August 2017 after it passed both house of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support.
The act expanded sanctions against Russian entities and restricted the president’s ability to reduce sanctions without congressional approval. The measures were intended to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections, its incursions into Ukraine and its support for the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
The State Department on Monday said the sanctions have already denied the Kremlin of billions of dollars in defense revenue.
“Since the enactment of the CAATSA legislation, we estimate that foreign governments have abandoned planned or announced purchases of several billion dollars in Russian defense acquisitions,” Nauert said. A State Department official said the administration is “using this legislation as Congress intended to press Russia to address our concerns related to its aggression in Ukraine, interference in other nations’ domestic affairs and abuses of human rights.”
In October, the State Department previewed these potential sanctions by providing Congress with a list of 39 individuals and entities known to support Russia’s intelligence and defense sectors. Since then, the State Department has been working with the business community to define what sort of activity could trigger sanctions. Those conversations are ongoing and future sanctions are not off the table.
“Significant transactions with listed Russian entities will result in sanctions,” the State Department official said.
The department said a classified report was submitted to Congress on Monday. As of Monday night, the House Foreign Affairs Committee had not received any report and its members had not been briefed by the State Department. But the Senate Foreign Relations Committee was given a classified briefing. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Democrat from Maryland and the highest ranking Democrat on the committee, welcomed the briefing but said he is “intently focused on these sanctions.”
“The U.S. should be prepared to impose sanctions when the law is clearly violated. The administration should not rest in these efforts and I expect a frequent and regular dialogue on this issue,” Cardin said in a statement.
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