Tag Archives: Donald Trump

Republican avoids upset in costly Georgia congressional race

Karen Handel, Republican candidate for Georgia's 6th Congressional District, makes an appearance before supporters prior to giving her acceptance speech at her election night party at the Hyatt Regency at Villa Christina in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S., June 20, 2017. REUTERS/Bita Honarvar

By Andy Sullivan

SANDY SPRINGS, Ga. (Reuters) – Georgia Republican Karen Handel won the most expensive congressional race in history on Tuesday, avoiding a Democratic upset in a race that was widely seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump.

By a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent, the former Georgia secretary of state defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff, a political newcomer who sought to wrest control of a suburban Atlanta district that has elected Republicans to Congress since the 1970s.

The election will not significantly change the balance of power in Washington, where Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

But it could give Republicans a boost in confidence as they struggle to advance health and tax legislation that has been bogged down by infighting and investigations into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in last year’s presidential election.

Handel said at her victory rally that she knew it was going to “require all hands on deck” for Republicans to hold on to the district.

“Tonight I stand before you, extraordinarily humbled and honored at the tremendous privilege and high responsibility that you … have given me,” Handel told a boisterous crowd that chanted Trump’s name.

Ossoff and Handel both tried to focus on local issues and avoided mentioning Trump, whose approval rating sits at 37 percent, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

But that did not stop Trump from weighing in on Twitter, urging voters to support Handel before the election and celebrating her victory afterward.

“Fantastic job, we are all very proud of you!” he posted Tuesday night.

Spending on the race reached at least $57 million, nearly twice the previous record, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. The special election was held to fill the seat vacated by Tom Price after Trump appointed him as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Democrats celebrated the fact that they had turned a conservative stronghold into a competitive district.

“We showed the world that in places where no one thought it was even possible we could fight (that) we could fight,” Ossoff told supporters.

But the defeat was sure to prompt soul-searching in a party that is shut out of power in Washington and has steadily lost influence at the state level in recent years. Despite spending more than $30 million, Ossoff lost the district by a wider margin than Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats also lost a special election in neighboring South Carolina on Tuesday, where Republican Ralph Norman easily prevailed over Democrat Archie Parnell in a seat formerly held by Republican Mick Mulvaney, who is now serving as Trump’s budget director.

Democrats are 0 for 4 in congressional elections this year, having earlier lost races to fill vacant seats in Kansas and Montana.

“All the Fake News, all the money spent = 0,” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Republicans, meanwhile, can now breathe a sigh of relief with the knowledge that they can still win in the kind of affluent, educated districts that often favor Democrats – even with a president who has divided voters in their own party.

“Do I agree 100 percent with what he does? God, no. But I believe he has the country’s best interests at heart,” said Jessica Podalsky, who voted for Handel on Tuesday morning.

(Additional reporting by Amanda Becker in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler, Peter Cooney and Paul Tait)

Trump’s son-in-law Kushner begins peace push with Middle East talks

FILE PHOTO: White House senior adviser Jared Kushner at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S. June 19, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

By Luke Baker

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday, beginning a new U.S. effort to revive Middle East peace efforts.

Kushner, a 36-year-old real estate developer with little experience of international diplomacy and peace negotiations, arrived in Israel early on Wednesday and will spend barely 20 hours on the ground – he departs shortly after midnight.

During his stopover, he will meet Netanyahu for their first formal discussions on peace, before traveling to Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, for talks with Abbas after Iftar, the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan fast.

U.S. officials are calling the trip part of an effort to keep the conversation going rather than the launching of a new phase in the peace process, saying that Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, the president’s special representative for international negotiations, are likely to return repeatedly.

Greenblatt arrived in Israel on Monday for preliminary discussions in both Jerusalem and Ramallah, and will remain for follow-up talks after Kushner has departed, officials said.

Trump has described a peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians as “the ultimate deal” and made it a priority since taking office: he’s received both Netanyahu and Abbas in the White House and visited the region last month.

But it remains unclear what approach Trump, via Kushner and Greenblatt, plans to take on resolving one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

For at least two decades, the goal of U.S.-led diplomacy has been a “two-state solution”, meaning an independent Palestinian state living side-by-side and at peace with Israel.

But when he met Netanyahu in Washington in February, Trump said he was not fixed on two states saying, “I’m looking at two-state and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like”.

Netanyahu has in the past given his conditional backing to two states. But ahead of his last election victory in 2015, he promised there would never be a Palestinian state on his watch, a remark seen as an attempt to shore up support on the right.

In preliminary discussions before Kushner’s visit, Palestinian sources said the phrase “two state solution” had not been used.

SETTLEMENT DISPUTE

On Tuesday, hours before Kushner’s arrival, Netanyahu announced the beginning of work on a new settlement in the West Bank, and has talked of thousands more settlement homes, ramping up a policy that has long been a major obstacle to peace.

The Palestinians have in the past called for a freeze on settlement building before any negotiations can take place. Most of the world considers settlements built on occupied land illegal under international law, a position Israel disputes.

Palestinian sources said that ahead of Kushner’s meeting with Abbas, they had been asked to draw up a list of 12 ‘bullet point’ demands they have in any negotiations.

They saw it as a helpful exercise in focusing on core elements rather than an oversimplification of a complex issue.

Trump administration officials have said that if they are going to make progress on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, they do not want to get bogged down in process but to move more rapidly toward resolving what are known as “final status” issues, the complexities around Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, water resources, security and borders.

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Iran’s supreme leader criticizes U.S. policies toward Tehran

FILE PHOTO: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech during a ceremony marking the death anniversary of the founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in Tehran, Iran, June 4, 2017. TIMA via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out on Sunday at U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and what he characterized as its hostility to the Islamic Republic.

“This inexperienced group has not recognized the people and leaders of Iran,” he said, according to the website for state TV. “When they get hit in the mouth, at that time they’ll know what’s going on.”

Khamenei and other senior Iranian officials have ramped up their criticism of the United States in recent weeks after Trump went on an official visit last month to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s main regional rival.

During that visit, Trump singled out Iran as a key source of funding and support for militant groups. He has also criticized the nuclear deal between Iran and six major powers, including the United States, that led to the lifting of most sanctions against Iran, in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. Trump has said Washington would review the deal but stopped short of pledging to scrap it.

Iran and the United States cut diplomatic ties shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution and enmity to Washington has long been a rallying point for hardline supporters of Khamenei in Iran.

Khamenei has accused the United States and its regional ally Saudi Arabia of funding hardline Sunni militants, including Islamic State, which carried out its first attack in Iran earlier this month, killing 17 people.

Riyadh has denied involvement in the suicide bombings and gun attacks on Iran’s parliament and the mausoleum of the Islamic Republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Khamenei said in his speech on Sunday that any efforts to destabilize the Islamic Republic would not succeed.

“In the past 38 years, when has there been a time when you haven’t wanted to change the Islamic system?” Khamenei said, according to Fars News. “Your head has hit the rock each time and always will.”

(Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Exclusive: Trump seen hardening line toward Pakistan after Afghan war review

U.S. President Donald Trump walks to the White House in Washington, U.S. following his arrival from Camp David June 18, 2017. REUTERS/Eric Thayer

By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration appears ready to harden its approach toward Pakistan to crack down on Pakistan-based militants launching attacks in neighboring Afghanistan, U.S. officials tell Reuters.

Potential Trump administration responses being discussed include expanding U.S. drone strikes, redirecting or withholding some aid to Pakistan and perhaps eventually downgrading Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Some U.S. officials, however, are skeptical of the prospects for success, arguing that years of previous U.S. efforts to curb Pakistan’s support for militant groups have failed, and that already strengthening U.S. ties to India, Pakistan’s arch-enemy, undermine chances of a breakthrough with Islamabad.

U.S. officials say they seek greater cooperation with Pakistan, not a rupture in ties, once the administration finishes a regional review of the strategy guiding the 16-year-old war in Afghanistan.

Precise actions have yet to be decided.

The White House and Pentagon declined to comment on the review before its completion. Pakistan’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The United States and Pakistan continue to partner on a range of national security issues,” Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump said.

But the discussions alone suggest a shift toward a more assertive approach to address safe havens in Pakistan that have been blamed for in part helping turn Afghanistan’s war into an intractable conflict.

Experts on America’s longest war argue that militant safe havens in Pakistan have allowed Taliban-linked insurgents a place to plot deadly strikes in Afghanistan and regroup after ground offensives.

Although long mindful of Pakistan, the Trump administration in recent weeks has put more emphasis on the relationship with Islamabad in discussions as it hammers out a the regional strategy to be presented to Trump by mid-July, nearly six months after he took office, one official said.

“We’ve never really fully articulated what our strategy towards Pakistan is. The strategy will more clearly say what we want from Pakistan specifically,” the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Other U.S. officials warn of divisions within the government about the right approach and question whether any mix of carrots and sticks can get Islamabad to change its behavior. At the end of the day, Washington needs a partner, even if an imperfect one, in nuclear-armed Pakistan, they say.

The United States is again poised to deploy thousands more troops in Afghanistan, an acknowledgment that U.S.-backed forces are not winning and Taliban militants are resurgent.

Without more pressure on militants within Pakistan who target Afghanistan, experts say additional U.S. troop deployments will fail to meet their ultimate objective: to pressure the Taliban to eventually negotiate peace.

“I believe there will be a much harder U.S. line on Pakistan going forward than there has been in the past,” Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to the United States, told Reuters, without citing specific measures under review.

Kabul has long been critical of Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan.

Pakistan fiercely denies allowing any militants safe haven on its territory. It bristles at U.S. claims that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate, has ties to Haqqani network militants blamed for some of the deadliest attacks in Afghanistan.

“What Pakistan says is that we are already doing a lot and that our plate is already full,” a senior Pakistani government source told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The source doubted the Trump administration would press too hard, saying: “They don’t want to push Pakistan to abandon their war against terrorism.”

Pakistani officials point towards the toll militancy has taken on the country. Since 2003, almost 22,000 civilians and nearly 7,000 Pakistani security forces have been killed as a result of militancy, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, which tracks violence.

Experts say Pakistan’s policy towards Afghanistan is also driven in part by fears that India will gain influence in Afghanistan.

IS PAKISTAN AN ALLY?

Nuclear-armed Pakistan won the status as a major non-NATO ally in 2004 from the George Bush administration, in what was at the time seen in part as recognition of its importance in the U.S. battle against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents.

The status is mainly symbolic, allowing limited benefits such as giving Pakistan faster access to surplus U.S. military hardware.

Some U.S. officials and experts on the region scoff at the title.

“Pakistan is not an ally. It’s not North Korea or Iran. But it’s not an ally,” said Bruce Riedel, a Pakistan expert at the Brookings Institution.

But yanking the title would be seen by Pakistan as a major blow.

“The Pakistanis would take that very seriously because it would be a slap at their honor,” said a former U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Lisa Curtis, senior director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, co-authored a report with Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s former ambassador to Washington, in which they recommended the Trump administration warn Pakistan the status could be revoked in six months.

“Thinking of Pakistan as an ally will continue to create problems for the next administration as it did for the last one,” said the February report.

It was unclear how seriously the Trump administration was considering the proposal.

The growing danger to Afghanistan from suspected Pakistan-based militants was underscored by a devastating May 31 truck bomb that killed more than 80 people and wounded 460 in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.

Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency said the attack – one of the deadliest in memory in Kabul – had been carried out by the Haqqani network with assistance from Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denies.

Washington believes the strikes appeared to be the work of the Haqqani network, U.S. officials told Reuters.

U.S. frustration over the Haqqani’s presence in Pakistan has been building for years. The United States designated the Haqqani network as a terrorist organization in 2012. U.S. Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, then the top U.S. military officer, told Congress in 2011 that the Haqqani network was a “veritable arm” of the ISI.

The potential U.S. pivot to a more assertive approach would be sharply different than the approach taken at the start of the Obama administration, when U.S. officials sought to court Pakistani leaders, including Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.

David Sedney, who served as Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia from 2009 to 2013, said the attempt to turn Islamabad into a strategic partner was a “disaster.”

“It didn’t affect Pakistan’s behavior one bit. In fact, I would argue it made Pakistan’s behavior worse,” Sedney said.

MORE DRONES, CASH CUT-OFF

Pakistan has received more than $33 billion in U.S. assistance since 2002, including more than $14 billion in so-called Coalition Support Funds (CSF), a U.S. Defense Department program to reimburse allies that have incurred costs in supporting counter-insurgency operations.

It is an important form of foreign currency for the nuclear-armed country and one that is getting particularly close scrutiny during the Trump administration review.

Last year, the Pentagon decided not to pay Pakistan $300 million in CSF funding after then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter declined to sign authorization that Pakistan was taking adequate action against the Haqqani network.

U.S. officials said the Trump administration was discussing withholding at least some assistance to Pakistan.

Curtis’ report also singled out the aid as a target.

But U.S. aid cuts could cede even more influence to China, which already has committed nearly $60 billion in investments in Pakistan.

Another option under review is broadening a drone campaign to penetrate deeper into Pakistan to target Haqqani fighters and other militants blamed for attacks in Afghanistan, U.S. officials and a Pakistan expert said.

“Now the Americans (will be) saying, you aren’t taking out our enemies, so therefore we are taking them out ourselves,” the Pakistan expert, who declined to be identified, said.

Pakistan’s army chief of staff last week criticized “unilateral actions” such as drone strikes as “counterproductive and against (the) spirit of ongoing cooperation and intelligence sharing being diligently undertaken by Pakistan”.

(Additional reporting by Josh Smith in Kabul, Drazen Jorgic in Islamabad and John Walcott in Washington; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Howard Goller)

U.S. soldiers wounded in apparent shooting at Afghan base: official

By Abdul Matin

MAZAR-I-SHARIF, Afghanistan (Reuters) – At least one Afghan soldier was killed and several American soldiers were wounded in an incident at a base in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, a U.S. military official said.

A spokesman for the U.S. military command in Kabul denied earlier comments by an Afghan official that Americans had been killed, but confirmed that an unspecified number of soldiers had been wounded at Camp Shaheen, the headquarters of the Afghan army’s 209th Corps in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

At least one Afghan soldier was killed and another wounded, the U.S. official said.

Abdul Qahar Araam, spokesman for the Afghan army’s 209th Corps, had announced that an Afghan soldier shot and killed four U.S. troops inside the base.

The German military heads the multinational advising mission based in Mazar-i-Sharif. A spokeswoman for the German forces at the joint missions command in Potsdam said “according to what we know right now, no Germans were affected”.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and a fourth wounded on June 11 when an Afghan soldier opened fire on them at a base in eastern Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.

In April, scores of Afghan soldiers were killed when militants breached security at Camp Shaheen, detonating explosives and shooting hundreds of troops at a mosque and dining hall on the base.

Coalition countries, led by the United States, are considering sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan to help advise and assist Afghan forces struggling against Taliban and Islamic State militants.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday that he would present options on Afghanistan to President Donald Trump “very soon”.

(Additional reporting by Sabine Siebold in Berlin and Josh Smith in Kabul; Writing by Josh Smith; Editing by Dale Hudson and Adrian Croft)

Putin: more U.S. sanctions would be harmful, talk of retaliation premature

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with journalists following a live nationwide broadcast call-in in Moscow, Russia June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said new sanctions under consideration by the United States would damage relations between the two countries, but it was too early to talk about retaliation, state news agency RIA reported on Saturday.

The U.S. Senate voted nearly unanimously earlier this week for legislation to impose new sanctions on Moscow and force President Donald Trump to get Congress’ approval before easing any existing sanctions.

“This will, indeed, complicate Russia-American relations. I think this is harmful,” Putin said, according to RIA.

In an interview with Rossiya1 state TV channel, excerpts of which were shown during the day on Saturday, Putin said he needed to see how the situation with sanctions evolved.

“That is why it is premature to speak publicly about our retaliatory actions,” RIA quoted him as saying.

Russia and the West have traded economic blows since 2014, when Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and lent support to separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.

The West imposed economic and financial sanctions that battered the rouble and the export-dependent economy. Moscow retaliated by banning imports of Western food, which also hit ordinary Russians by spurring inflation, and barred some individuals from entering Russia.

The threat of a new wave of sanctions emerged this month as U.S. policymakers backed the idea of punishing Russia for alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and for supporting Syria’s government in the six-year-long civil war.

Putin had previously dismissed the proposed sanctions, saying they reflected an internal political struggle in the United States, and that Washington had always used such methods as a means of trying to contain Russia.

(Reporting by Andrey Ostroukh; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Trump acknowledges he is under investigation in Russia probe

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the shootings in Alexandria, Virginia, from the White House in Washington, U.S., June 14, 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Susan Heavey and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump acknowledged on Friday he is under investigation in a probe of alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential race and possible collusion by his campaign – and seemed to assail the Justice Department official overseeing the inquiry.

Robert Mueller, the special counsel named by the department to investigate the Russia matter, is now examining whether Trump or others sought to obstruct the probe, a person familiar with the inquiry said on Thursday.

“I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” Trump wrote on Twitter, referring to his May 9 dismissal of James Comey.

Trump did not identify “the man” but appeared to be questioning the integrity of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department’s No. 2 official who appointed Mueller on May 17, supervises the probe and wrote a memo to Trump critical of Comey that preceded Comey’s firing.

Hours later, a source close to Trump’s outside legal team said Trump did not intend his tweet to be confirmation of the investigation but rather was reacting to a Washington Post story on Wednesday about the probe. The source spoke on condition of anonymity.

Rosenstein has said privately he may need to recuse himself from matters relating to the Russia probe because he could become a witness in the investigation, ABC News reported on Friday. ABC said Rosenstein told Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand she would have authority over the probe if he were to step aside.

The Democratic National Committee called on Rosenstein to recuse himself from the Russia matter, but it said authority over the investigation should be given to Mueller and not another Trump appointee.

While the Republican Trump administration initially said Rosenstein’s letter was the reason the president fired Comey on May 9, Trump later said he did so because of the “Russia thing.”

Comey told a Senate panel last week he believed Trump fired him to undermine the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Russia probe. Comey testified that Trump directed him in February to drop an FBI investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn relating to the Russia matter.

Comey testified it would be up to Mueller to decide whether Trump’s action amounted to obstruction of justice, an act that could be cited in any effort in the Republican-led Congress to impeach him and remove him from office.

TRUMP’S LAWYER HIRES A LAWYER

The Russia issue has cast a shadow over Trump’s five months in office.

In another indication of the seriousness of the probe, Michael Cohen, a personal attorney to Trump, said he has retained attorney Stephen Ryan, a former assistant U.S. attorney, to represent him in the ongoing probes. Cohen has received a subpoena from one of the congressional committees looking into the Russia issue.

Rosenstein has authority over the inquiry because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself on March 2 after revelations of previously undisclosed meetings with Russia’s ambassador to Washington while he was a Trump campaign adviser.

Brand was confirmed as the No. 3 Justice Department official on a 52-46 vote in the Senate on May 18, with Democrats lining up against her.

From 2011 until her confirmation, she was a lawyer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce business lobbying group’s legal arm, which played a major role in marshaling legal opposition to environmental and labor regulations championed by Democratic former President Barack Obama.

Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Senate Intelligence Committee member, said she was “increasingly concerned” Trump would try to fire not only Mueller, but also Rosenstein.

“The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn’t apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired,” Feinstein said.

A Trump confidant said this week the president had considered firing Mueller. Rosenstein, who would be responsible for actually dismissing Mueller, told U.S. lawmakers he would fire him only with good cause.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in January that Russia interfered in the presidential race to try to help Trump win, in part by hacking and releasing emails damaging to his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

Moscow has denied any interference. The White House denies any collusion.

Trump kept up his criticism of the investigations, writing on Twitter, “After 7 months of investigations & committee hearings about my ‘collusion with the Russians,’ nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad!”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Patricia Zengerle, Lawrence Hurley, David Alexander, Dustin Volz, Roberta Rampton and Julia Edwards Ainsley in Washington; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Frances Kerry and Howard Goller)

U.S. Senate votes near unanimously for Russia, Iran sanctions

National flags of Russia and the U.S. fly at Vnukovo International Airport in Moscow, Russia April 11, 2017. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate voted nearly unanimously on Thursday for legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia and force President Donald Trump to get Congress’ approval before easing any existing sanctions on Russia.

In a move that could complicate U.S. President Donald Trump’s desire for warmer relations with Moscow, the Senate backed the measure by 98-2. Republican Senator Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, were the only two “no” votes.

The measure is intended to punish Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region and support for Syria’s government in the six-year-long civil war.

If passed in the House of Representatives and signed into law by Trump, it would put into law sanctions previously established via former President Barack Obama’s executive orders, including some on Russian energy projects. The legislation also allows new sanctions on Russian mining, metals, shipping and railways and targets Russians guilty of conducting cyber attacks or supplying weapons to Syria’s government.

“The legislation sends a very, very strong signal to Russia, the nefarious activities they’ve been involved in,” Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said as lawmakers debated the measure.

If the measure became law, it could complicate relations with some countries in Europe. Germany and Austria said the new punitive measures could expose European companies involved in projects in Russia to fines.

The legislation sets up a review process that would require Trump to get Congress’ approval before taking any action to ease, suspend or lift any sanctions on Russia.

Trump was especially effusive about Russian president Vladimir Putin during the 2016 U.S. election campaign, though his openness to closer ties to Moscow has tempered somewhat, with his administration on the defensive over investigations into Russian meddling in the election.

Putin dismissed the proposed sanctions, saying they reflected an internal political struggle in the United States, and that Washington’s policy of imposing sanctions on Moscow had always been to try to contain Russia.

The bill also includes new sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program and other activities not related to the international nuclear agreement reached with the United States and other world powers.

UNCERTAIN PATH IN HOUSE

To become law, the legislation must pass the House of Representatives and be signed by Trump. House aides said they expected the chamber would begin to debate the measure in coming weeks.

However, they could not predict if it would come up for a final vote before lawmakers leave Washington at the end of July for their summer recess.

Senior aides told Reuters they expected some sanctions package would eventually pass, but they expected the measure would be changed in the House. The Trump administration has pushed back against the bill, and his fellow Republicans hold a commanding 238- to 193-seat majority in the chamber.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson questioned the legislation on Wednesday, urging Congress to ensure that any sanctions package “allows the president to have the flexibility to adjust sanctions to meet the needs of what is always an evolving diplomatic situation.”

Previously, U.S. energy sanctions had only targeted Russia’s future high-tech energy projects, such as drilling for oil in the Arctic, fracking and offshore drilling. They blocked U.S. companies such as Exxon Mobil, where Tillerson was chairman, from investing in such projects.

The new bill would slap sanctions on companies in other countries looking to invest in those projects in the absence of U.S. companies, a practice known as backfilling.

Also included for the first time are discretionary measures the Trump administration could impose on investments by companies in Western countries on Russia energy export pipelines to Europe.

The Senate also voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to add provisions to the bill allowing the U.S. space agency NASA to continue using Russian-made rocket engines and the 100 senators voted unanimously for an amendment reaffirming the U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance.

(Additional reporting by Tim Gardner; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Tom Brown)