Washington: The political deadlock over the Sanctioning Russia Act - which threatens up to 100% tariffs on India and four other countries for buying Russian energy - continued in Washington on Thursday, despite an intense lobbying effort by Ukraine to secure the bill’s passage in the House of Representatives.
Influential Congressman Gregory Meeks - who has led opposition within the Democratic Party to the bill - met with Vladyslav Vlasiuk, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has backed the bill. Meeks emerged from the meeting on Wednesday stating publicly that he will continue to oppose the bill on the grounds that it grants too much tariff authority to President Trump.
“I welcomed today’s conversation with Mr. Vlasiuk and the chance to express my gratitude to him and the Ukrainian people for their brave defence of their territory and our shared democratic values. Mr. Vlasiuk and I share an urgent goal: to support Ukraine and punish Russia. To achieve that I believe Congress must ensure sanctions on Russia are mandatory, not optional, and that Ukraine has the defence capabilities it needs to protect itself,” said Meeks, who is the senior most Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a statement.
“Unfortunately, the Senate’s Sanctioning Russia Act does neither. It would instead gift President Trump with virtually unchecked tariff authority and broad discretion to waive sanctions on Russia indefinitely without Congressional oversight. This is a president who has demonstrated time and again that he is eager to weaponise and abuse tariff authority, and unwilling to hold Russia accountable for its aggression,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}“Unfortunately, the Senate’s Sanctioning Russia Act does neither. It would instead gift President Trump with virtually unchecked tariff authority and broad discretion to waive sanctions on Russia indefinitely without Congressional oversight. This is a president who has demonstrated time and again that he is eager to weaponise and abuse tariff authority, and unwilling to hold Russia accountable for its aggression,” he added.
{{/usCountry}}Meeks’ statement comes amid disagreements within the opposition Democratic party about the bill. Members of the party in the Senate were enthusiastic backers of the bill, playing a role in its passage in the upper house by a decisive 86-12 margin. The lawmakers have urged their colleagues in the House to pass the Sanctioning Russia Act, complete with the tariff provisions. For his part, Meeks has called for a “good-faith compromise” that would place economic pressure on Russia to end the war while addressing concerns like-minded lawmakers have about the tariff provisions.
These disagreements continue even as the House of Representatives and the Senate reconvened this week after a recess in August. Persons aware of the matter on Capitol Hill told HT that substantial uncertainty remained as to when the bill would be introduced for a vote. Some believed that the upcoming visit of China’s President Xi Jinping in late September has played a role in delaying a vote on the bill. The bill targets the top five purchasers of Russian energy, which would include China. The Trump administration may, the people added, seek to delay a vote on the Russia sanctions bill until after the Chinese President’s visit is concluded. The Democratic Party will attempt to bridge internal divides through this week, minority leader Representative Hakeem Jeffries was quoted as saying in US media reports.
However, they also added that the bill - should it come to a vote - is expected to pass if the White House lends its support given the fact that Trump’s Republican party holds a slim majority in the House of Representatives. Trump administration officials have given mixed signals about the extent of their support for the bill. US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor notably downplayed President Trump’s support for the Russia sanctions bill in New Delhi last month. Gor pointed to the fact that the White House had not publicly advocated for the bill to be passed.
However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took aim at the Democrats for holding up passage of the bill in the House. “So as we said, the White House was supportive of it passing in the Senate, and we would see that the House hopefully take it up. But right now, the opposition to it, as you said, is coming from Democrats that just don’t want to pass a bill that gives the President more authority, even though they claim to be supportive of Ukraine,” Rubio said in an interview on Tuesday.