US Executive Order Sanctions Russia

President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Aug. 1 to give the State and Treasury departments the ability to impose more sanctions on countries using chemical or biological weapons. The new sanctions include restrictions on financial loans by international banks, blocking measures and trade controls.

The executive order imposes sanctions on Russia over the country’s poisoning of a “former spy in Britain,” according to an Aug. 2 Reuters report. The sanctions follow the first round of measures last year, in which Washington sanctioned Moscow for using a “nerve agent” against Sergei Skripal, a former Russian double agent, and his daughter, the report said.

“After the first round of sanctions in response to Russia’s assassination attempt against a private citizen in the UK, Russia did not provide the assurances required under U.S. law,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told Reuters. “So we are imposing a second round of sanctions.”

The amended underlying order upon which the latest action is based was originally issued Nov. 14, 1994.