Bipartisan Bill Goes Further with Sanctions to Punish Russia

I was recently on “Your World” with Neil Cavuto on Fox News following passage of new legislation to suspend trade relations with Russia and Belarus during their conflict with Ukraine. Click here to watch the full interview.

Both parties in Congress worked together over the last two weeks to both ban Russian oil, but to go further with these economic sanctions. 

The ban on importing Russian oil from last week covers about 60 percent of what we buy from Russia. The rest of it is covered in these normal trading relationships. 

Russia entered the World Trade Organization on the belief that they would follow the rule of law and trade. Clearly, this war shows they follow no rule of law and respect it. So it was important that both parties in Congress worked together over the last two weeks to both ban Russian oil, but to go further with these economic sanctions.

This bill though, unlike Canada, where they just slapped a flat 35 percent tariff on everything coming in from Russia, we gave the administration the ability to adjust those tariffs up and down to inflict maximum economic pain on Russia and minimum on the US. So we think in a bipartisan way, we created some awfully smart sanctions.

I think we could help the Ukrainians even more, as the only way you negotiate a true settlement is if you are winning or prevailing in the field itself, and I'd like to see us do more in a smart way.