Senate upholds decision to ease Russian sanctions
WASHINGTON — The Senate voted to narrowly uphold a Treasury Department decision to lift sanctions from three companies connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
A vote to move forward on a Democratic resolution that would have reversed Treasury’s decision failed Wednesday 57-42, just short of the 60 votes needed.
The vote came up short even though several Republicans had criticized the sanctions move and 11 of them voted with Democrats.
At issue is a December announcement from the Treasury Department that the U.S. would lift sanctions on the companies linked to Deripaska —Russian aluminum manufacturing giant Rusal, EN+ Group and the Russian power company JSC EuroSibEnergo.
EN+ Group is a holding company that owns nearly 50 percent of Rusal.
Congress has 30 days from the announcement to vote to block it, a deadline that expires Friday. The House is expected to vote Thursday on a similar resolution to block Treasury’s move — a symbolic action after the Senate vote failed.
The Treasury Department says the Russian companies have committed to separating from Deripaska, who will remain blacklisted as part of an array of measures announced in early April that targeted tycoons close to the Kremlin.
Treasury maintains that the companies have committed to diminish Deripaska’s ownership and sever his control. In a statement last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Deripaska remains under sanctions, “his property and interests
‘Absurd’ idea
MOSCOW — Top Russian officials ridiculed the idea that President Donald Trump could have worked for Russia’s interests, dismissing them Wednesday as “absurd” and “stupid.”
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a news conference that U.S. newspaper reports about Trump withholding details of his meetings with Russia’s president and an FBI investigation of whether he was working on Moscow’s behalf reflected a plunge in journalism standards.
Trump said this week that he never worked for Russia and repeated his claim that an ongoing investigation of his ties to Russia was a hoax.
remain blocked, and any companies he controls are also sanctioned.”
Treasury has warned that the sanctions could upset global aluminum markets or even prompt the Russian government to nationalize the company, thus shutting it out from any outside control.
Mnuchin attended a closed-door GOP lunch Tuesday and urged senators to vote against the Democratic resolution. Speaking after the meeting, he said the sanctions “shouldn’t be a political issue.”
But Democrats — and almost a dozen Republicans — weren’t convinced.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the agreement didn’t relinquish enough of Deripaska’s control and questioned whether Trump’s administration was doing Russia’s bidding.
“For a very long time the Republican Party predicated its foreign policy on taking a tougher line against Russia and Putin,” Schumer said on the Senate floor before the vote. “In so many campaigns for president, we Democrats were accused of not being tough enough on the Russians. It seems that acquiescence to the president, a fear of breaking with the president, has held back too many of my Republican colleagues from supporting this resolution.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell encouraged Republicans to vote against it, reiterating that Deripaska’s influence over the companies would be limited and calling the vote a “Democratic stunt.”