News that the United States was adjusting some of its sanctions on Russia raised howls of protest from some after it broke online, but it turns out the move just looked a lot worse than it actually was.
The U.S. Treasury Department issued a notice on Feb. 2 that it had adjusted some sanctions imposed on the FSB, Russia’s Federal Security Service that is the successor to the Soviet-era KGB.
U.S. officials said the Feb. 2 order would help U.S. technology companies do business in Russia and wouldn’t ease the U.S. sanctions imposed by former U.S. President Barack Obama’s executive order of Dec. 29.
But some users of social media immediately decried the move, saying it was the first stage of a rollback by U.S. President Donald Trump of sanctions on Russia.
The latest U.S. sanctions on Russia were imposed in the wake of claims that Russia’s FSB was involved in efforts to influence last November’s U.S. presidential election.
Obama’s order included the FSB on the list of Russian organizations affected by sanctions.
However, as the FSB is responsible for licensing tech devices that use encryption, the sanctions effectively prohibited some device exporters from having any dealings with the agency, meaning that exports of certain electronic goods were blocked.
This concerned devices like phones and laptops that don’t give users the ability to use alternative operating systems, such as those made by iPhone maker Apple.
At first glance, the Feb. 2 notice indeed appeared to be a step toward lifting Obama-era sanctions on Russia, something President Trump had indicated he might want to do to build a new relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
That interpretation was favored by Nikolai Kovalyov, a lawmaker and former FSB director, who said the order was an indication that the Trump administration wanted to work more closely with Russia.
“This shows that actual joint work on establishing an antiterrorism coalition is about to begin,” Kovalyov told Russian state news agency TASS. “This is the first step on the way leading to cooperation in the war on terror.”
On Capitol Hill, however, U.S. Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona), a strong sanctions supporter, told reporters that his staff was still examining the matter, although the initial read was that it was a “technical fix.”
At the White House, Press Secretary Sean Spicer denied there had been any policy change, saying such tweaks were standard operating procedure.
Later on Feb. 2, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control organized a call-in briefing with a “senior Treasury official,” who, it cautioned, could not be quoted, reports the Washington Post.
U.S. exporters had complained, the official said, so the new administration looked into the matter and decided they had a point. The fix now allows U.S. companies, prohibited from dealing with the FSB in any other way, to pay up to $5,000 a year in FSB fees so that Russians can buy U.S.-exported cellphones and other consumer items.
Other sanctions remain in place.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov cam be reached at [email protected].
