During the spring of 2018, the Trump administration expelled sixty Russian intelligence officers and diplomats and also imposed sanctions against various Russian individuals and companies.Footnote 1 These actions responded to a range of actions attributed to Russia, including a poisoning on U.K. soil, its efforts to destabilize Ukraine, its support of the Assad regime in Syria, and various cyber activities.
On March 4, 2018, a military-grade nerve agent was used against a former Russian double agent, now a British citizen, and his daughter in the U.K. city of Salisbury.Footnote 2 British Prime Minister Theresa May attributed this act to Russia, calling it an “unlawful use of force by the Russian state against the United Kingdom.”Footnote 3 The United States joined Britain, France, and various other countries in condemning Russia's actions.Footnote 4 On March 26, 2018, the Trump administration ordered the expulsion of twelve Russian intelligence officers and forty-eight other Russian officials, as well as the closure of the Russian consulate in Seattle.Footnote 5 The White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated, “The United States takes this action in conjunction with our NATO allies and partners around the world in response to Russia's use of a military-grade chemical weapon on the soil of the United Kingdom, the latest in its ongoing pattern of destabilizing activities around the world.”Footnote 6
In response, Russia denied responsibility for the use of the nerve agent, expelled sixty American diplomats and a number of diplomats from other countries, and ordered the closure of the U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg.Footnote 7 Sanders denounced this response:
Russia's action today to expel American diplomats marks a further deterioration in the United States-Russia relationship. The expulsion of undeclared Russian intelligence officers by the United States and more than two dozen partner nations and NATO allies earlier this week was an appropriate response to the Russian attack on the soil of the United Kingdom. Russia's response was not unanticipated, and the United States will deal with it.Footnote 8
Separately, on April 6, 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs and several of the companies they own or control, seventeen Russian government officials, and a Russian weapons trading company and its subsidiary.Footnote 9 These sanctions were implemented pursuant to Executive Orders 13661 and 13662, “Blocking Property of Additional Persons Contributing to the Situation in Ukraine,” orders codified and amended by §§ 222 and 223 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).Footnote 10 The sanctions freeze any assets under U.S. jurisdiction of the designated individuals and entities and prohibit U.S. individuals and entities from dealing with them.Footnote 11 Some of these individuals had been previously included on a list of oligarchs issued in January by the Department of Treasury pursuant to an obligation imposed by CAATSA.Footnote 12
In announcing the sanctions, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin explained:
“The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites. … The Russian government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine, supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians, attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities. Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government's destabilizing activities.”Footnote 13
The expulsion and sanctions have been accompanied by some mixed messages from the Trump administration regarding its approach to Russia. In March, President Trump congratulated President Putin on his reelection,Footnote 14 prompting Senator John McCain to respond that “[a]n American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections.”Footnote 15 In April, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced that additional sanctions would be imposed against Russian companies that helped facilitate Syria's use of chemical weapons.Footnote 16 Although the Trump administration had condemned Russia's role in relation to Syria's use of chemical weapons,Footnote 17 it backed away from Haley's announcement.Footnote 18 More generally, shadowing the Trump administration's relationship with Russia are concerns about Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, in addition to ongoing investigations and litigation regarding any connections between the Trump campaign and Russia.Footnote 19
