I did not take it decisively

Donald Trump planned to lift sanctions from Russia in the early days as president of the United States. This was reported by Yahoo News with reference to "informed sources", including the former US State Department coordinator for Daniel Frida.

High officials of the White House almost immediately after the inauguration of Trump set the task for the State Department the task of "removing tension in relations with Moscow." In particular, it was required to develop proposals for the removal of economic restrictions, as well as to return to Russia its diplomacy.

"The White House was seriously considered the issue of canceling sanctions unilaterally," said Fried. According to him, in the first weeks of the work of the new administration, he received several "panic" phone calls from American officials, from which they demanded to develop a plan for lifting economic sanctions. They asked Frida to “stop this,” he says.

According to Frida, he had to ask his associates in the US Congress to accelerate the bill that would stop Trump's attempt to lift sanctions.

The existence of a plan for lifting sanctions was confirmed by the former senior employee of the State Department Tom Malinovsky, who worked in the foreign policy at Barack Obama.

On January 1, a member of the Committee of the House of Intelligence Representatives Democrat Adam Schiff said that the US Congress will give an “energetic answer” if Trump would try to cancel sanctions against Russia. Moreover, both parties will achieve the expansion of sanctions. “You will see that the Democrats and Republicans, for example, (John) McCain and (Lindsay) Graham and others, will unite to get a more powerful package of sanctions. Frankly, although the administration (Barack Obama) has not made a symbolic gesture - this was very significant - this is not enough to restrain Russia,” Schiff emphasized.

In early February, a group of American senators, led by Graham and Democrat Ben Cardin, prepared a bill obliging the president to coordinate the mitigation of anti -Russian sanctions with Congress. Among the senators who spoke in support of the document were Republicans McCain and Marco Rubio, as well as the Democrats of Sherrod Brown and Claire McCaskill.

"The Act of 2017 on the mitigation of sanctions against Russia" was prepared on the model of the similar law of 2015, which he ordered the president to conduct a decision regarding the Iranian nuclear program through the Congress. Graham -Cardin’s bill demanded that the president agree with Congress of both sanctions decisions and conclusions confirming Moscow’s refusal to support terrorists in eastern Ukraine and the termination of Russian cyber attacks in the United States.

During the election campaign, Trump repeatedly announced his intention to cancel sanctions. However, on January 27, he stated that it was too early to talk about the lifting of sanctions from Russia . The officials of his administration made it clear that the conditions for the abolition of sanctions remain the same as under the previous president.