{"id":161,"date":"2018-01-30T19:26:15","date_gmt":"2018-01-31T00:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=161"},"modified":"2018-03-01T12:23:46","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T17:23:46","slug":"trumps-stance-on-russia-sanctions-angers-both-moscow-and-washington","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gopplaybook.com\/?p=161","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Stance on Russia Sanctions Angers Both Moscow and Washington"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0By\u00a0NEIL MacFARQUHAR<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0PETER BAKER<\/span><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
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President Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Hamburg, Germany, last year. Many of Mr. Putin\u2019s closest advisers appear on a Trump administration list of people identified because their \u201ccloseness to the Russian regime.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0Credit<\/span>Stephen Crowley\/The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MOSCOW \u2014 The Trump administration managed the unusual feat this week of outraging both Russia\u2019s leaders in Moscow and Russia\u2019s biggest critics in Washington with its handling of a new law intended to punish the Kremlin for interference in the 2016 American elections.<\/p>\n

The State Department angered members of Congress by announcing on Monday that it\u00a0did not plan to impose new sanctions<\/a>\u00a0called for in a measure that President Trump\u00a0reluctantly signed into law<\/a>\u00a0last year. And the Treasury Department angered Moscow late Monday night \u2014 Tuesday morning in Russia \u2014 with a new name-and-shame list identifying\u00a0210 senior Russian political and business figures<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The twin announcements left a muddled impression of how Mr. Trump plans to approach the Kremlin in his second year in office even as investigators search for evidence of collaboration between his campaign and Russian agents. His domestic opponents complained that once again Mr. Trump seemed to be in thrall to Russia, while the Kremlin complained that he was a captive of what it described as the American deep state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is definitely an unfriendly act,\u201d President\u00a0Vladimir V. Putin<\/a>\u00a0said when asked about the Treasury Department list during a campaign event in advance of Russia\u2019s own presidential election in March. \u201cIt is complicating Russian-American relations, where the situation is already hard, and is definitely harming international relations in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Putin said Moscow had pondered virtually breaking ties with Washington over what is known in Russia as the \u201cKremlin report,\u201d but decided against it. \u201cWe were prepared to undertake retaliatory steps, and quite serious ones too, which would cut our relations to zero,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we will refrain from such steps for the time being.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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On Capitol Hill, lawmakers criticized Mr. Trump for not imposing additional sanctions on Russia as envisioned in the legislation passed over his objections by veto-proof bipartisan majorities in both houses last August.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a grave breach of President Trump\u2019s responsibilities to reward President Putin by inaction for his intervention in an American election \u2014 it represents nothing less than appeasement for an attack on our country\u2019s democracy,\u201d said Representative Adam Smith of Washington State, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. \u201cIt is time for us time to stand up for our country. We cannot let these actions to continue to go unpunished.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new law made Monday an important date for action. The law required Mr. Trump to begin imposing sanctions on large purchasers of Russian\u00a0military equipment<\/a>. But the State Department said it did not need to do so at this point because it had been using the threat of the law in recent months to press customers to cancel potential deals that would have been worth billions of dollars to Russia.<\/p>\n

The law also directed Mr. Trump to produce a list of \u201csenior political figures and oligarchs\u201d in Russia. No actions were required against those on the list, but it was meant to signal those close to Mr. Putin that they had much to lose if Moscow does not pull back from its intervention in Ukraine and its interference in Western elections, and the prospect of being included\u00a0alarmed many in Russia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Grilled by Democrats during a congressional hearing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin rejected suggestions that the administration was delaying action on Russia and said that additional action would be taken. \u201cThere will be sanctions out of this report,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But when Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, pressed him on whether he agreed that Mr. Putin \u201chas acted like a thug,\u201d Mr. Mnuchin demurred.<\/p>\n

\u201cUm, I\u2019m not going to use that terminology,\u201d Mr. Mnuchin said, \u201cbut there are clearly issues that we need to address and that we have done with sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go through the list,\u201d Mr. Kennedy replied. \u201cUkraine, Crimea, Syria, he meddled in our election, he\u2019s helping North Korea cheat. I mean it seems to me in terms of sanctions, we only hit him so hard he\u2019s coughing up bones. I mean he\u2019s not getting better. He\u2019s getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announcements came just days after two senior Russian intelligence officials traveled to Washington to meet with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director. Sergey Y. Naryshkin, director of the foreign intelligence service, was in Washington last week for consultations on terrorism, according to\u00a0Russian state media<\/a>, even though he was sanctioned by the American government under President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

According to an American official, he was accompanied by Alexander V. Bortnikov, director of the domestic intelligence service, who has not been sanctioned. The C.I.A. would not confirm the meeting but said any interactions would have been in accordance with American law.<\/p>\n