The_Guardian_-_2016-12-29

sanctions on Russia in retaliation for the hacking. The White House did not respond to a request for
comment on the report.
The fate of new sanctions remains unclear, however, with Trump due to take over the White House in
little more than three weeks. During the campaign, Trump not only suggested he might lift sanctions on
Russia, but also said he would look into the possibility of recognising Crimea, annexed from Ukraine
in 2014, as part of Russia.
Asked by reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida if the US should sanction Russia over hacking
activities, Trump said on Wednesday: “I think we ought to get on with our lives. I think that computers
have complicated lives very greatly. The whole age of computer has made it where nobody knows
exactly what’s going on.”
Rex Tillerson, Trump’s pick for secretary of state, has also raised eyebrows, given his long history of
doing business with Russia as head of Exxon Mobil, and his close personal friendship with Igor
Sechin, head of the Russian oil giant Rosneft. Sechin is one of Putin’s closest associates, and is on the
US sanctions list.
Tillerson said in 2014 that Exxon did not support sanctions in general because they were hard to
implement effectively. At an economic forum in Russia earlier this year, he laughed off a question on
sanctions, while saying he agreed with “my friend Mr Sechin”.
Not all the sanctions currently in place would be easy for Trump to revoke, even if he wanted to do
so. Most difficult would be those against Russian individuals implicated in human rights abuses,
linked to the Magnitsky Act, named after the whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in
prison. They were put in place in 2013 using an act of Congress, and as such Congress would be
required to revoke them. It is likely that the White House would also ensure any new sanctions related
to hacking could not be easily rescinded by Trump.
However, the wider ranging sanctions that were introduced by the Obama administration over
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and meddling in east Ukraine were implemented by presidential
executive order, and as such could be revoked by Trump with the stroke of a pen.
Were Trump to do so, European businesses would put major pressure on their governments to lift EU
sanctions as well, so as not to allow US companies an unfair advantage on the Russian market.
In a televised interview last week, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was hoping for
“new, fresher and more constructive approaches” from Trump’s administration. He said Russia would
welcome further dialogue but was not pushing for sanctions to be lifted.
“We didn’t initiate the sanctions dialogue and we won’t initiate their removal,” said Peskov. He said
Russia and the US had not been particularly affected by sanctions, unlike European agricultural
producers, who suffered losses from Russia’s counter-sanctions banning the imports of many food
items.
However, there is no doubt that Russia would be extremely pleased to see the sanctions gone, not