President Donald Trump is imposing new sanctions on Russia in retaliation to the country's poisoning of a British spy in March.
British officials claimed last month to have evidence that Russia assassinated British citizen Sergei V. Skripal and his daugher, and now Trump is taking action just weeks after his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The sanctions will ensure that U.S. companies are unable to obtain an export license to ship any sort of goods to Russia that could be considered a national security hazard.
“[T]he United States, on Aug. 6, 2018, determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert stated Wednesday.
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley expressed her concern regarding Russia in April.
“If chemical weapons can appear in a small English town, where might they start appearing next?” she said. “None of us will be immune from this threat unless we immediately start rebuilding our consensus against chemical weapons.”
The sanctions must be officially enforced within 60 days.
(Cover Photo: Wikimedia Commons)