Apartment with flexibility of the whip

The White House wants to maintain flexibility when applying sanctions against Russia and other countries. This was announced at a briefing by the press secretary of the US President Sean Spicer.

"I think the main thing that bothers us in the approach to sanctions - how the Congress draws them up and is it not fraught with a potential undermining of the powers of the executive branch," Spicer said. In his opinion, the administration should be able to show flexibility in the implementation of sanctions, "to effectively achieve the goal."

At the same time, Spicer found it difficult to answer the question when the draft law on sanctions would be adopted.

The high -ranking source of The Washington Post in the White House also noted that the Donald Trump administration is unhappy with the provision of the bill that the president will not be able to cancel sanctions against Moscow and Tehran without the consent of the congress. The source emphasized that claims relate precisely to the issue of separation of powers, and not to a specific issue of relations with Russia.

On June 14, the US Senate approved the bill on strengthening the restrictive against Iran, as well as the introduction of new sanctions against Russia for interference with the 2016 American presidential campaign. The same document obliges the president of the country to coordinate any softening of sanctions with Congress. The bill was adopted in 97 votes. Only two Republicans voted against - Mike Lee and Rand Paul.

However, on Monday, the House of Representatives of the US Congress, at the initiative of the members of the Republican Party , abandoned the quick vote under the bill. The document was sent for study to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

This caused the discontent of a number of congressmen. "The republican leadership must, without delay, consider the bill so that the House of Representatives votes for it and sends the president for signature," said the representative of the Democrats in the Eliot Engel Foreign Affairs Committee. In his opinion, otherwise, "the White House will have time to" weaken these key efforts to bring the Kremlin accountable. "

In the case of submitting significant changes to the bill, the document must be returned to the Senate for repeated approval.