Trump rejects fresh round of sanctions on Russia

White House: Haley spoke too soon in announcing them

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump rejected for now imposing a fresh round of sanctions against Russia on Monday, a course change that underscored the schism between the president and his national security team.

The president’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, had announced Sunday that the administration would place sanctions on Russian companies found to be assisting Syria’s chemical weapons program. The sanctions were listed on a menu of further government options after a U.S.-led airstrike on Syria, retaliating against a suspected gas attack that killed dozens a week earlier.

But the White House contradicted her on Monday, saying that Trump had not approved additional measures.

“We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.

Speaking later with reporters aboard Air Force One as Trump headed to Florida, Sanders added that “the president has been clear that he’s going to be tough on Russia, but at the same time he’d still like to have a good relationship with them.”

Another White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations, said Trump had decided not to go forward with the sanctions. Trump concluded that they were unnecessary because Moscow’s response to the airstrike was mainly bluster, the official said.

Russia analysts said the whipsaw policy shift once again highlighted an administration struggling to find a coherent and consistent voice in dealing with Russia, which in the past four years has annexed Crimea, intervened in eastern Ukraine, sought to influence the U.S. election in 2016, allegedly poisoned a former Russian spy living in Britain and propped up the murderous government of President Bashar Assad in Syria.

Trump has mostly spoken hopefully of his efforts to forge a friendship with President Vladimir Putin of Russia, including congratulating him on a re-election widely denounced as a sham and even suggesting a White House meeting. At the same time, the Trump administration has imposed two rounds of sanctions against Russia in the last month, expelled 60 of Moscow’s diplomats and closed a consulate in retaliation for the poisoning attack in Britain.

“Trump seems to think that if he accepts what his advisers recommend on even days of the month and rejects their recommendations on odd days, the result will be a strategy,” said Stephen Sestanovich, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations and Columbia University who served as ambassador to former Soviet states in the 1990s.

“By and large, other governments don’t know whether to laugh or cry at all this,” Sestanovich said. “But in Russia, laughter is getting the upper hand.”

Trump was annoyed with Haley for getting out in front of the policy, the administration official said, and the president’s decision to reject sanctions left her hanging in public with her credibility on the line.

Haley has been one of the strongest critics in the administration of Russia’s behavior around the world, often speaking far more harshly than Trump would. She made no comment on Monday.

Administration officials said new sanctions could be imposed at some point if Russia takes further action justifying them.