Republicans blocked in the US Congress Senate Further passage of the country’s defense budget project for the next fiscal year. Reports about it TASS.
The draft defense budget in the amount of approximately 770 billion dollars includes including sanctions against Russia. To transition a project to the next stage of consideration in the Senate, 60 votes were needed. However, 45 senators voted for it, against spoke 51.
Before the voting, the leader of the Republicans in the Senate Mitch McConnell said that his union counters would block the draft budget, since having most democrats did not allow a number of proposals. We are talking about a package with 18 amendments, among which are additional sanctions against the Russian gas pipeline “Northern Stream-2”.
Previously, The Hill newspaper wrote that the US State Department seeks to convince Democrats in the Senate to block the amendment to the country’s defense budget project for the next fiscal year, which began on October 1. The initiative implies the introduction of sanctions against companies involved in the certification of the North Stream-2 gas pipeline.
US President Joe Bayiden expressed concerns to the introduction of tougher actions on the project, since it was frightened to cause German discontent. Therefore, the Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has conceived to cancel the sanctions for the certification of “Northern Flow-2”.