Europeans should welcome the US sanctions bill
Since Donald Trump’s election, many Europeans have been concerned about the future of the sanctions regime imposed by the United States on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine. For good reasons. If the United States removed its sanctions — as Michael Flynn might or might not have hinted to the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak — it would be politically difficult for the European Union to sustain its own sanctions.That would signal only one thing to the Kremlin: Ukraine is fair game. It would also encourage Vladimir Putin to try his luck elsewhere, in the hope of little or no Western pushback. The rationale for the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the Senate on Thursday was precisely to prevent such an outcome. That Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders were the only two nays in that vote should tell you everything you need to know.
Yet, Europe’s response to the legislation is not the sigh of relief you might expect. Instead, the president of the European Commission (EC) Jean-Claude Juncker is now threatening the United States with retaliation “within a matter of days.”
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