House, Senate agree on sanctions
Russia, Iran, North Korea would be subject to measure
Senate and House leaders struck a deal late Wednesday to send a long-debated sanctions bill imposing new measures against Russia, Iran and North Korea to the president’s desk, after securing promises that Congress will consider even more stringent measures against North Korea down the line.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., announced that he agreed to have the Senate take up the measure that the House passed Tuesday on a vote of 419-3, after House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed that in the near future, the House would “expeditiously consider and pass enhancements” to the North Korea portion of the bill.
Chief among the “enhancements” Corker had sought up to the last minute was a provision that would have given Congress the ability to block the president from being able to ease punitive measures against North Korea in the future.
Such a provision, known as “congressional review,” would have been modeled on similar language in the sanctions bill that pertains to Russia sanctions. In addition to codifying and enhancing existing sanctions against Moscow, the legislation requires the president to notify Congress whenever he wants to change Russia sanctions policy. That notification then triggers a 30-day period in which Congress can vote to prevent the president from easing punitive measures against Moscow.
That level of congressional review is unprecedented in sanctions bills, but was roundly popular in Congress, where many lawmakers have been uneasy about President Donald Trump’s apparent coziness with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite the administration’s considerable efforts to get lawmakers to abandon the congressional review, members and senators endorsed the approach, both for the Russia sanctions in the pending legislation and as a model for future sanctions bills — a reflection of lawmakers’ continuing distrust of the president’s conduct in foreign affairs.
While House Republican leaders have been noncommittal when it comes to endorsing congressional review as an approach for future sanctions measures, Corker has been one of its most vocal advocates in Congress. He told reporters Wednesday that “most” other senators wanted to see such a provision attached to the North Korea sanctions in the legislation — even threatening at one point to strip the North Korea sanctions out of the bill entirely to force more debate.
Earlier on Wednesday, Corker laid out three options for the Senate: Pass the bill as it is, strip the North Korea sanctions provision from it and start negotiating with the House — “which I know they’re adamantly opposed to,” Corker acknowledged — or try to make more changes to the legislation before sending it back across the Capitol.
Last month, the Senate passed a version of the sanctions bill that contained measures against Russia and Iran only by a vote of 98 to 2.