WASHINGTON: US senators on Sunday touted a bipartisan bill that would arm President Donald Trump with \u201csledgehammer\u201d sanctions to use against Russia, ahead of a visit by the US special envoy to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Trump has indicated he would be open to the sanctions bill as relations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin grow increasingly frosty.<\/p>\n
US special envoy Keith Kellogg is due to begin his latest visit to Ukraine while Trump said he would make a \u201cmajor statement… on Russia\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he had majority backing in the Senate for his bill, which was gaining momentum as Washington-led peace efforts in Ukraine have struggled to make headway.<\/p>\n
The bill would allow Trump \u201cto go after Putin\u2019s economy, and all those countries who prop up the Putin war machine,\u201d Graham told broadcaster CBS news.<\/p>\n
Trump, who has repeatedly said he is \u201cdisappointed\u201d with Putin as Moscow unleashed deadly barrages of missiles against Kyiv, has hinted he might finally be ready to toughen sanctions.<\/p>\n
Trump held off for the past six months while he tried to persuade Putin to end the war.<\/p>\n
But the Republican president\u2019s patience appears to be wearing thin, telling reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House Tuesday that Putin was talking \u201ca lot of bullshit\u201d on Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Last week, Trump also agreed to send Zelensky more weapons, including through a deal with NATO which would involve the alliance purchasing US weapons to send to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Trump appeared to back the bill without detailing whether he would use it to slap sanctions on Moscow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to pass a very major and very biting sanctions bill, but it\u2019s up to the president as to whether or not he wants to exercise it,\u201d Trump told broadcaster NBC.<\/p>\n
Asked during a cabinet meeting about his interest in the bill, Trump said: \u201cI\u2019m looking at it very strongly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis congressional package that we\u2019re looking at would give President Trump the ability to impose 500 percent tariffs on any country that helps Russia,\u201d said Graham, adding that those could include economies that purchase Russian goods like China, India or Brazil.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is truly a sledgehammer available to President Trump to end this war,\u201d said Graham.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout a doubt, this is exactly the kind of leverage that can bring peace closer and make sure diplomacy is not empty,\u201d the Ukrainian leader said about the proposed bill in an X post.<\/p>\n
Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal were to meet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Blumenthal told CBS news they would also discuss the legally thorny issue of unlocking frozen Russian assets in Europe and the United States for access by Ukraine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe $5 billion that the United States has also could be accessed, and I think it\u2019s time to do it,\u201d said Blumenthal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: US senators on Sunday touted a bipartisan bill that would arm President Donald Trump with \u201csledgehammer\u201d sanctions to use against Russia, ahead of a visit by the US special envoy to Ukraine. Trump has indicated he would be open to the sanctions bill as relations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin grow increasingly frosty. US …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":83701,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83702,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83688\/revisions\/83702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}