Top House GOP lawmakers said President Joe Biden’s decision to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 is a step in the right direction but content that the administration is still falling short of what’s needed to combat Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine.
Biden announced sanctions against the Russian company that built the controversial natural gas pipeline Wednesday, just one day after Germany halted its certification of the project, with the president asserting in a statement that he will “not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate.” But some Republicans said they feel the move is “overdue” and urged the administration to ramp up its efforts to combat Russian threats in the wake of the Kremlin’s forces surrounding Ukraine’s borders.
“The administration’s decision to remove the ridiculous ‘national interest’ sanctions waiver on Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO is a positive, but extremely overdue, step in the right direction,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a statement. “Now that Putin has launched a further invasion of Ukraine, I once again strongly urge the president to go even further and enact the ‘swift’ and ‘severe’ sanctions he promised that go after more major Russian financial institutions and Putin’s top cronies. Time is of the essence.”
BIDEN ADMINISTRATION ALLOWS SANCTIONS TO RESUME ON NORD STREAM 2
Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks echoed McCaul’s sentiments, adding that he believes the administration has mishandled its initial response to the threats.
“All of this was avoidable. We always had the upper hand. Why didn’t we wait to impose sanctions and get tough after the fact instead of deterring it to begin with?” said the Indiana congressman. “That’s what’s most disappointing about it, but Putin had Biden figured out from the start and has played him like a fiddle.”
GOP Rep. Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania, a U.S. Navy veteran, argued that sanctions on Nord Stream 2 should have been put in place “from the get-go.” He added that the United States should have “taken the Russians out of the Swift banking system” and placed sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, his family, and the oligarchs closest to him in an effort to force the country to withdraw troops from the Ukrainian border.
Reschenthaler added that he believes if the U.S. doesn’t step up to do more to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty, it could lead to the escalation of aggression from other adversarial countries, including from the Chinese Communist Party in Taiwan.
Texas Republican Rep. August Pfluger, an Air Force veteran who has been vocal regarding his concerns over Nord Stream 2 providing Russia with leverage over the U.S.’s energy resources, said the U.S. needs to ensure that Russia isn’t finding ways to skirt sanctions and repeatedly called for the greenlighting of the Keystone XL pipeline to ease U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources.
“There’s still ways to circumvent them and loopholes for the oligarchs and the elites inside Russia to get around the economic impacts here,” Pfluger told the Washington Examiner. “So broad, sweeping, very impactful sanctions are still what is needed, the hard stance and the leadership — this is really at the heart of the issue.”
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Rep. William Timmons, a South Carolina Republican, told the Washington Examiner that he feels “more severe sanctions, increased lethal military aid, drones, anti-air, anti-tank, anti-ship, more of everything” need to be implemented to push Russia to retreat in addition to “escalation and de-escalation timelines.”
In the same vein, House Armed Services Committee ranking member Mike Rogers is calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call the House back into session to vote on legislation to take a harder line against Russia.
“Speaker Pelosi should immediately bring Congress back into session to vote on the NYET Act,” said Rogers, an Alabama Republican. “This legislation would expeditiously enact sanctions that would bring the Russian economy to its knees.”
