President Trump expected to OK sanctions against Russia

By Azernews

By Ali Mustafayev  

U.S. President Donald Trump skimpily accepted new congressional sanctions on Russia, the top U.S. diplomat said, remarks in contrast with those of Vice President Mike Pence.

“In a sign of our commitment, very soon, President Trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codify the United States’ sanctions against Russia,” Pence said. He asserted that the President and Congress are unified in their message to Russia.

The U.S. Congress voted earlier by overwhelming margins for sanctions to punish the Russian government over interference in the 2016 presidential election, annexation of Crimea and other perceived violations of international norms.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters that he and Trump did not believe the new sanctions would "be helpful to our efforts" on diplomacy with Russia.

The improvement of relationship with Russia was one of the main targets of Trump, and he repeatedly declared it during his election campaign. This makes obvious that he begrudgingly accepts the idea of implementing the sanctions, which are strongly supported on Capitol Hill.

"The action by the Congress to put these sanctions in place and the way they did, neither the President nor I were very happy about that," said Tillerson, contrasting to the statement of the Vice President Pence.

"We were clear that we didn't think it was going to be helpful to our efforts, but that's the decision they made, they made it in a very overwhelming way. I think the president accepts that."

The Russian government took countermeasures, reducing the number of diplomatic staff in U.S. diplomatic and consular offices. Moscow indicated the intention to reduce the diplomats and clerks  to the number of Russian diplomatic staff functioning in the USA - which is 455, BBC reported.

The relationships between the USA and Russia became strained in 2014 after the Crimea conflict.

Donald Trump publicly stated that improvement of US - Russia relations is one the most important targets of his administration.

However, the information given by the US intelligence agencies regarding Russian interference in U.S. presidential election in 2016 deteriorated relationship between two countries further. Despite the official statements no definite evidences were provided.