As The New York Times newspaper wrote, the House of Representatives is usually belligerent toward Russia, as they "face a choice" between the demonstration of a tough line against Moscow and the desire to avoid a potentially serious confrontation with its own president.
According to the US constitution, all legislative acts related to the state's revenues should be initially considered by the House of Representatives. However, the draft for anti-Russian sanctions was first considered in the Senate and only after sent to the House of Representatives.
Politico noted that the Senate sent its proposals to the House of Representatives regarding the resolution of the situation.
Last week, the US Senate voted in favor of new sanctions against Russia over its alleged interference in the US presidential election in 2016, an allegation that Moscow strongly denies. The new sanctions include additional punitive measures against Russia’s defense, intelligence, mining, shipping and railway industries and restrict dealings with the country's banks and energy companies.
A professor at St. Petersburg State University, Alexander Kubyshkin, believes that despite the fact that the decision on the draft law on sanctions against Russia is not final the consensus in the United States on this issue is almost complete.
“There is a clear violation of the procedure, for which the House of Representatives and the leadership of the Republican Party have been caught, but it must be understood that in principle both the House of Representatives and the Senate are in favor of expanding sanctions against Russia, hence in the United States the consensus on this issue is almost complete,” Kubyshkin said.
He added that Trump will not cancel the sanctions at this stage because his political position is shaky.
This week, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko paid a visit to the United States, meeting with senior US officials including President Donald Trump.
According to the analyst, Trump decided to use the Ukrainian leader in order to strengthen his own position.
“It is worth noting that this [the US decision on sanctions] was a definite gift to Peter Poroshenko during his visit to the US. It was definitely not a coincidence, a certain 'pill' was needed; and Trump decided to use Petro Poroshenko to strengthen his own political position, his image of a tough politician,” the analyst said.
Talking about the bill on anti-Russian sanctions, the political scientist expressed his opinion saying that the main reason why the House of Representatives of the Congress slowed down this document is the decision-making procedure itself.
However, he believes that the bill will still be approved.
“If this bill passes all the approvals at once, it will tie the hands of the Trump administration for future steps. Now the Republican majority in Congress has simply slowed down the adoption of the bill, after adhering to procedural violations, but once they are eliminated, everything will go down,” Kubyshkin said.
The analyst added that he is sure that the House of Representatives will vote for sanctions but, perhaps, in a slightly relaxed version; however, it will not change the essence of the decision.
