By Geoff D. Porter
During a routine Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on February 3rd, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) asked the hearing’s witnesses if the Trump administration would apply Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) to Algeria were Algiers to order Russian fighter jets. Passed in 2017, CAATSA mandates sanctions on Iran, North Korean, and Russia, and allows secondary sanctions on foreign entities that transact with Tehran, Pyongyang, and Moscow. The response from Robert Palladino, a senior bureau official at State Department, was non-committal: Algerian purchases of Russian military equipment “may trigger” sanctions which is something that the State Department continues to “watch closely.”
Palladino was evasive on purpose. It is public knowledge that Algeria already took delivery of at least two Russian Su-57 5th generation fighter jets, which begs the question of why the Trump administration is waffling on sanctioning Algeria under CAATSA. The answer stretches back to the Abraham Accords and the final days of the first Trump administration but also to a meeting in Madrid last week.
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