WASHINGTON — The Senate voted unanimously on Thursday to strip Moscow of its preferential trade status and ban Russian energy imports into the United States, in order to further punish the Russian economy in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
The legislation would allow the United States to impose higher tariffs on Russian goods and cut off a significant revenue stream for President Vladimir V. Putin, although experts have said the oil and gas ban would be largely symbolic. Russian energy accounts for a small portion of US imports and Moscow is already having trouble exporting its oil.
The House is expected to approve the measures later on Thursday and send them to President Biden’s office.
The bills came after weeks of partisan deadlock crippled legislative action against Ukraine. The House passed similar legislation last month, but the legislation languished as senators bickered over several provisions, most notably human rights language that Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul thought was overly broad.
The prospect of leaving House passed legislation in limbo as senators prepare to leave Washington for a scheduled two-week recess, New York Democrat and Majority Leader Senator Chuck Schumer said Wednesday night that the Senate will pass the legislation just hours before Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
“Putin must be held absolutely responsible for the odious, despicable war crimes he is committing against Ukraine,” Schumer said. “The images that we have seen coming from that country, especially from the city of Bucha, are just pure evil.” He later called the heinous crimes committed by Russian soldiers “genocide.”
“If we deliberately kill innocent civilians for who they are, be it their religion, their race or their nationality, that is genocide, and Mr Putin is guilty of it,” Mr Schumer said.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Still, the difficulty of passing legislation broadly supported by Republicans and Democrats in both chambers to punish Russia—and repeat the efforts the White House announced nearly a month ago—suggested a bleak look at future efforts by legislators to approve sweeping measures aimed at supporting Ukraine.
Senators late Wednesday passed a bill to revive the Lend-Lease Act of 1941, which was last used in World War II to revive allies fighting against Germany, to lend military equipment to Ukraine. It passed after 9 p.m. without warning or debate, using a mechanism that automatically passes legislation unless a senator on the floor objects, suggesting lawmakers were wary that one or more of their colleagues would intervene to prevent the hinder the adoption of the bill.
The trade and gas and oil bills passed Thursday will be the first stand-alone legislation Congress has sent to Mr Biden’s desk in the more than 40 days since the Russian invasion in an attempt to punish Moscow or Kiev help. The main bill passed by Congress to aid Ukraine was the $13.6 billion package of military and humanitarian aid passed last month, which was linked to a federal spending bill that must be approved.
The United States’ move to strip Russia of its preferential trade status – known as “permanent normal trade relations” – carries symbolic weight, but trade experts have said it will have limited economic impact compared to other sanctions that have been imposed. Withdrawing that status will have a much greater effect on the European Union, Russia’s largest trading partner.