The House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to debate the defense policy bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the 2019 fiscal year next week.
According to the NDAA draft, the bill would provide the US administration with a “special rule” allowing it to waive some sanctions on American allies for purchasing arms from Russia. The rule, backed by the Republicans, would give President Donald Trump an opportunity to terminate some sanctions imposed on Moscow in a law (the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) overwhelmingly passed by Congress last year despite the head of state's opposition.
Pentagon Chief Pushes to Waive Sanctions for US Allies That Buy Russian S-400s
During a briefing, the NDAA provision was confirmed by a Republican House Armed Services Committee aide.
“While imposing significant new sanctions on the Russian defense industry, it provides the secretary flexibility, on a 180-day basis, to waive the application of sanctions of section 231 for an ally if the secretary is able to manifest that that ally has done a series of things, either terminate that relationship with Russia, significantly scale down that relationship with Russia or made other assurances about how they are dealing with that historical relationship with Russia,” the aide said.
Meanwhile, last week, US Defense Secretary James Mattis argued that allies who had intentions of moving away…
