President Trump will consider whether to continue economic sanctions against Russia when he talks to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, one of his top aides said Friday.
“All of that is under consideration, and certainly in addition to improving relations with different foreign leaders and their nations around the globe,” Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News.
Senators from both sides of the aisle strongly believe the sanctions imposed after Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine and annexation of Crimea — should be maintained.
They are also concerned about the intelligence community’s analysis that Russia meddled in the US election by hacking Democrats’ emails and passing them off to WikiLeaks to help Trump win.
Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) are introducing a bill to limit Trump’s power to kill the Russian sanctions without Congress’ approval.
“We need more sanctions against Russia. We should not relax them. If we don’t keep those sanctions on and even increase them it will encourage Vladimir Putin, who is a war criminal,” McCain said this week.
“We repeal sanctions, it tells Russia go ahead and interfere in our elections and do bad things, it tells China, it tells Iran. That would be terrible. So this legislation I hope will get bipartisan support,” Schumer added.
The Senate is also mulling a select committee to probe Russia’s hacking.
But Team Trump wants better relations with Russia and Putin — whom the president openly admires — despite European fears that Russian expansion is far from over.
Conway also told Fox that the administration is open to conversations with Russia on how to fight “radical Islamic terrorism.”
“If another nation that has considerable resources wishes to join together with the United States of America to try to defeat and eradicate radical Islamic terrorism, then we are listening.
But it’s very important to at least have this conversations,” she said.