Russia is out of step with most international treaties. I don't even understand why it is part of the G20. If Russia can't be trusted to comply with international treaties and laws, why trust Russia with trade?
January 24, 2019
By Morgan Chalfant
A Democratic senator (click here) is admonishing the Trump administration for not yet imposing a new round of sanctions on Russia for its poisoning of an ex-Russian spy in Britain as mandated under law.
“These sanctions are more than two months overdue,” Sen. Bob Menendez(N.J.), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday and released Thursday.
“I urge you to impose these sanctions immediately to ensure that the statutorily mandated sanctions regime is not undermined," Menendez added.
In August, the Trump administration sanctioned Russia for using a military-grade nerve agent against ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in Salisbury, England, earlier in the year.
The U.S. brought the sanctions under a 1991 law known as the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act, or CBW Act. Moscow has denied any involvement in the poisoning, which Skripal and his daughter survived.
Under the law, a second tranche of sanctions is automatically triggered unless Russia meets a number of strict criteria, including showing it is no longer using chemical or biological weapons and allowing for independent inspections.
The State Department alerted Congress in November that Moscow had not complied with the requirements to avoid a second round of sanctions. However, the U.S. has not formally announced new sanctions on Moscow in the more than two months that have passed....
