Overhaul shuts office overseeing sanctions

The U.S. State Department has quietly shuttered an office that oversees sanctions policy, even as the Trump administration faces criticism from members of Congress over its handling of new economic penalties against Russia.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson eliminated the Coordinator for Sanctions Policy office, which had been led by a veteran ambassadorrank diplomat with at least five staff members, as part of an overhaul of the department, former diplomats and congressional sources told Foreign Policy.

Instead, the role of coordinating U.S. sanctions across the State Department and other government agencies falls to one midlevel official: David Tessler, the deputy director of the Policy Planning Office. His office, which previously operated as a small team providing strategic advice to the secretary but did not manage programs or initiatives, has grown in power under Tillerson’s “redesign” of the department.

The sanctions office was dissolved after the administration missed a key Oct. 1 deadline to implement new penalties against Russia adopted by Congress in August. The move has reinforced concerns among Democratic and Republican lawmakers that the Trump White House is mismanaging the State Department and undercutting the role of U.S. diplomacy.

The “elimination of the sanctions coordinator appears to be part of the larger reorganization debacle underway at the State Department,” said Sean Bartlett, spokesman for Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The State Department declined to comment.

Both Cardin and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, had blasted the administration over its failure to implement the new Russia sanctions. On Friday, the State Department published a list of businesses and individuals linked to Russia’s defense and intelligence agencies, as required by the law.

The sanctions package was Congress’ response to Moscow’s meddling in the U.S. presidential election last year and its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. U.S. officials said Russia’s leading spy agencies, the GRU and FSB, were involved in the election interference. The GRU is Russia’s military intelligence agency; the FSB is the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB.

The message the law and the list send is straightforward: The United States can’t bar third parties from doing business with these companies affiliated with Russia’s intelligence and defense sectors, but the U.S. can decide to freeze the companies’ assets and lock them out of the American financial system if they do.

The State Department warned countries and companies on Friday that they risk tough U.S. sanctions if they do business with any of the more than three dozen Russian companies, including arms trader Rosoboronexport and missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey.

Also on the list are Russia’s biggest shipbuilding firm, United Shipbuilding Corp., and state-owned United Aircraft Corp., which manufactures the Sukhoi, Tupolev and MiG jets.