Less than a fortnight into Donald Trump’s presidency, the new administration has altered some of the sanctions President Barack Obama imposed against Russia in December of last year after multiple U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the Kremlin had interfered in the 2016 election.
On Thursday, the Treasury Department announced that American companies would be able to conduct limited business with the F.S.B., the Russian intelligence agency and successor to the K.G.B., which the Obama administration accused of directing a series of high-profile attacks against the Democratic Party last year, including the cyberattacks against the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.
The implications of the announcement were not immediately clear. According to the Treasury Department, the change authorizes certain previously prohibited transactions and activities involving the Federalnaya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti in amounts less than $5,000—purportedly to allow Russian intelligence to import technology products from U.S. companies. Sanctions experts told Reuters that the change was made to address unintended business consequences of Obama’s sanctions order, which may have complicated certain dealings of tech companies. “I don't think when they sanctioned F.S.B. they were intending to complicate the sale of cell phones and tablets,” former senior State Department official Peter Harrell told the outlet. Eric Lorber, a sanctions consultant at Financial Integrity Network, wrote on Twitter, “Unintended consequences popped up, [Office of Foreign Assets Control] dealt with them.”
The exceptions, which may have been in progress before Trump took office, nevertheless prompted a swift backlash, particularly on social media, where they were criticized by many for the poor optics. During the White House press briefing on Thursday, Sean Spicer pushed back on the developing narrative that the Trump administration was reversing the sanctions issued by the Obama administration. “We are not easing sanctions,” Spicer insisted, shortly after the news broke.
“From what I understand, it is a fairly common practice for the Treasury Department, after sanctions are put in place to go back and to look at whether or not there needs to be specific carve outs for different, either industries or products and services that need to be going back and forth,” Spicer added, before referring the press pool to the Treasury Department.
The change was celebrated in Moscow, where former F.S.B. director __Nikolai Kovalyov told state news agency Tass that the altered sanctions represented a first step toward greater cooperation in the war on the terror. “Without easing these sanctions it would have been impossible to take the next step," Kovalyov said. “These practical actions indicate that U.S. President Donald Trump has been consistent.”
The news comes amid heightened concerns on Capitol Hill over President Trump’s foreign policy, particularly the solicitous attitude he has presented toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, both on the campaign trail and in the months since the election. On Friday, Republican Senators John McCain and Rob Portman warned the administration against unilaterally lifting the sanctions against Moscow after Trump senior adviser Kellyanne Conway acknowledged that easing the sanctions was “under consideration.” Officials for Trump and Putin, who spoke over the weekend, told The New York Times that the topic of lifting the sanctions did not come up during the conversation. Trump has hinted in the past, however, that such a move was a strong possibility, prompting a bipartisan group of lawmakers—including McCain and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer—to suggest introducing legislation that would codify Obama’s sanctions into law, limiting Trump’s power to curtail them without the consent of Congress.
