WASHINGTON, December 10. /TASS/. The Trump administration will inform Congress of the US president’s position on a bill toughening sanctions on Russia and whether he would sign it if it were be adopted, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced on Tuesday.
"I'll go back to the White House and we'll talk about it and give you (Congressmen - TASS) an update on where the White House is on that," Greer said at a hearing of the Senate Committee on Appropriations in response to a question from US Senator from Louisiana John Kennedy. The latter asked why Donald Trump has not yet given the US Congress the green light to pass the bill. "After this (hearing - TASS), I’ll go talk to <…> [White House deputy chief of staff] James Blair and say, what’s going in," he added.
The bill in question was endorsed in early April by a bipartisan group of senators led by Graham and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. The measure envisages secondary sanctions against Russia’s trading partners, such as a 500% tariff on imports to the United States from countries that purchase oil, gas, uranium, and other goods from Russia.
Earlier, Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not confirm if the upper house of the US Congress would approve the measure before the end of the year.
On November 17, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would perceive the approval of the bill extremely negatively.