(AFP) – The US Senate on Friday passed a sweeping sanctions package targeting Russia’s energy revenues. The legislation now heads to the House of Representatives, though a vote there will not take place until at least early September due to the congressional summer recess.
“This could finally bring Russia to the negotiating table and end this conflict” between Russia and Ukraine, said Republican Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It will make a decisive impact that goes beyond what can be achieved on the battlefield. It will cut off the flow of cash that powers Putin’s war machine,” he added in a speech on the Senate floor before the vote.
The bill aims to target the Russian energy sector by imposing tariffs of up to 500 percent on imports from Russia, including gas and oil. It also includes 100-percent tariffs on the five main importing countries of Russian gas and oil, including China and India. New sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin and other high-ranking officials are also to be imposed. For the first time, the United States is also targeting Russia’s shadow fleet, a clandestine network of ships used by Moscow to circumvent Western embargoes since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
The bill was named in honor of Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator who died on July 11 and who had strongly advocated for new sanctions against Moscow because of its invasion of Ukraine. The day before his death, Graham, along with other Republican and Democratic senators, announced that they had secured the White House’s approval to pass these new sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons, measures that had previously been blocked by President Donald Trump. His sister, Darline Graham, who succeeded him in the Senate, said Friday the bill “hits Putin where it hurts.”
Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement that the bill sent “Vladimir Putin an unambiguous and bipartisan message in the only language he understands: pressure.”
According to Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer finally gave assurances that countries among the top five buyers of Russian oil and gas would no longer be penalized if they dropped in the rankings to sixth or lower. Several House members nevertheless expressed reservations about the bill, suggesting that passage in the lower chamber could be more difficult than in the Senate.
These new tariff powers could be used without restraint by Trump, Democratic Representatives Gregory Meeks and Don Beyer stated in a joint press release, calling the version adopted on Friday “unacceptable.” The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, welcomed the passage of the bill. “Together, let us drain Russia’s means to continue a war it cannot win,” she wrote on X.
The Russian Embassy in Washington last month condemned the legislation. Given the war in Iran, “with an impending energy crisis and rising gas prices on the eve of the midterm elections, sanctioning Russia and its trading partners… would be extremely counterproductive for the United States,” the embassy stated in a press release.
© 2024 AFP
