WASHINGTON: Republican Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick has declared that he would bring a bipartisan Bill to block President Donald Trump’s move to lift sanctions on Russian diesel after talks with President Vladimir Putin.
Fitzpatrick’s move has received support from outgoing Congressman Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska, who has decided to co-sponsor the legislation.
However, the move appears to be largely symbolic as the US House of Representatives will have a few months to pass as the term of the house expires in January.
“We will be introducing bipartisan legislation to block any and all purchases of Russian oil,” Fitzpatrick, the co-chair of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said in a post on x.
“It will be called the ‘Ronald Reagan Peace Through Strength Act’. It will be forced to the Floor via discharge and it will pass overwhelmingly,” he said.
“I’ve already agreed to be an original cosponsor. Congress must make a stand,” Bacon said in a post on X. Bacon is not seeking re-election in the midterm polls on November 3.
On Friday, after a phone call with Putin, Trump announced that he had struck a deal with Russia to immediately supply 300,000 tons of diesel to the US and the global marketplace.
The deal shocked Congressional leaders who last month overwhelmingly passed the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, empowering Trump to impose sweeping sanctions on Moscow and 100 per cent tariffs on its top five trading partners in oil and gas, including India and China.
“Congress banned Russian energy imports in 2022. @POTUS cannot simply ignore that law to buy diesel from Putin. The law mandates consultation with Congress and a formal review process. The Administration appears to have bypassed both,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said.
Earlier, US Senator Richard Blumenthal, the co-author of the Russia sanctions act, slammed Trump's deal with Putin, terming the move an “embarrassment”.
Blumenthal, along with late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, had authored the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which was passed by both Houses of US Congress with an overwhelming majority on September 16. Trump signed the Act into law two days later.
It was Blumenthal who had warned China and India to “clean up your act” and buy oil from elsewhere soon after the US Congress passed the Russia sanctions act on September 16.
“If Trump keeps cutting (illegal) oil deals with Russia, we may just have to start sanctioning ourselves,” Congressman Dave Min, a Democrat from California, said.
“Unfortunately, while I understand the desire to bring down diesel prices, I am concerned the lifting of sanctions on Russian oil will only fund the Kremlin’s war machine—emboldening more violence and destruction, as we have seen in recent days,” Michael McCaul, Republican Congressman from Texas, said on X.