Biden Administration Contemplating Punishing and Sanctioning India over Russian Reliance
Posted on 03/03/2022
India could be facing U.S. sanctions from the Biden administration. Donald Lu is a United States diplomat serving as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs since 2021. He was the United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from 2018 to 2021 and the United States Ambassador to Albania from 2015 to 2018. On March 3, 2022, in a hearing, Donald Lu told U.S. lawmakers that the Biden administration is weighing how threatening India’s historically close military relationship with Russia is to U.S. national security.
The Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) was passed in July 2017 in the U.S. on a bipartisan basis. The law gives the U.S. power to sanction transactions with Russian defense or intelligence sectors. Trump had reservations about the legislation seeing “serious flaws”, but the bill had uninamous support in both houses. CAATSA is the federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. Turkey was given a waiver until December 2020, as Turkey is a member of NATO. In December 2020, the Trump administration imposed sanctions under the law for Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S400 missile defense system.
Now, the Biden administration is weighing whether to do the needful and impose sanctions against India. This is over India’s inventory and reliance on Russian military equipment. The U.S., U.K., and Europe have ratcheted up more sanctions on Russia over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. It may be an in opportune time to levy sanctions on India as according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau, India-U.S. bilateral goods trade was worth US$ 113.391 billion from January to December 2021.
“It’s a question we’re looking at very closely, as the administration is looking at the broader question over whether to apply sanctions under CAATSA or to waive those sanctions,” Lu said.
Former U.S. President Trump had a different policy on India, working to build bilateral trade and investment with the massively-populated country.
Lu told lawmakers that the Biden administration is “in the process of trying to understand whether defense technology that we are sharing with India today can be adequately safeguarded given India’s historical relationship with Russia and its defense sales.”
“It is critical that with any partner, that the United States is able to assure itself that any defense technology we share is sufficiently protected,” he said.
