The US Senate has postponed consideration of a bill on new sanctions against Russia and its trading partners. The decision has been suspended until a scheduled meeting between US President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin. This was stated by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Politico reports.
“We’ll see how this meeting with Putin goes in a couple of weeks”, — Thune explained.
He noted that he is in constant contact with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who is coordinating work on sanctions with the White House. According to Thune, Graham is trying to find out “whether the meeting will be fruitful”. Currently, the bill is effectively frozen until negotiations between the leaders of the United States and Russia. Earlier, Donald Trump said that the meeting should take place in Budapest, but he did not name the exact date.
The pause in the promotion of the document came after Thune himself last week stated the need to move to legislative steps that include tariffs for countries importing Russian energy and secondary sanctions against foreign companies. However, on the same day, Trump had a long phone conversation with Putin and then questioned the need to move the bill forward.
The document has more than 80 co-authors, which provides the necessary support to overcome a possible presidential veto. At the same time, Republicans do not want to push it forward without a clear position from Trump, so as not to create a “politically difficult situation” for their colleagues if he opposes the initiative.
