Senate Majority Leader Chuck Sumer told reporters that Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin and Republican Sen. Rand Paul were trying to reach a compromise that would allow the measure to pass quickly rather than through a “normal order.” could take weeks. The bill was stopped in the Senate despite lawmakers insisting they want to show a united front in support of the government in Kyiv, more than a month after the Russian invasion. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Under U.S. law, Congress must approve the trade regime change. The legislation has strong bipartisan support, having passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming 424-8 votes earlier this month. But in the Senate, he was trapped in partisan battles, first over Russian oil imports and more recently over abortion rights. read more The measure passed by the House also re-authorizes the Magnitsky Global Human Rights Accountability Act, drafted by Cardin, which allows sanctions to be imposed for human rights violations. But re-approval has a slight change in wording. It now faces “serious” human rights violations, having previously faced “gross” ones. The new Magnitsky language came from a 2017 executive order by former Republican President Donald Trump. But Paul argued that the new language in the bill gives too much power to a president to impose sanctions for human rights violations, including that it could be used to impose sanctions on anyone who denies a woman access to an abortion. Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Register Report by Patricia Zengerle. Edited by Alistair Bell Our role models: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
