The amendment, authored and introduced by Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna urges the Biden administration to use its authority to provide India with a CAATSA waiver.
Washington: The US House of Representatives Thursday passed a legislative amendment by voice vote to approve a waiver to India against the stringent CAATSA sanctions for the country’s purchase of S-400 missile defence system from Russia to block aggressors like China.
The legislative amendment was passed as a part of an en bloc (all together as a single unit) amendment during floor consideration of the National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA).
The amendment, authored and introduced by Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna urges the Biden administration to use its authority to provide India with a Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) waiver.
Khanna said, “The United States must stand with India in the face of escalating aggression from China. As Vice Chair of the India Caucus, I have been working to strengthen the partnership between our countries and ensure that India can defend itself along the Indian Chinese border.”
“This amendment is of the utmost importance, and I am proud to see it pass the House on a bipartisan basis,” he added. The CAATSA law was introduced in 2017.
CAATSA is a stringent US law that authorises the administration to impose sanctions on countries that purchase major defence hardware from Russia in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
Back in October 2018, India had signed a $5 Billion deal with Russia to buy five units of the S-400 air defence missile systems. The country went ahead despite a warning from the then-Trump administration that going ahead with the contract may invite US sanctions. The S-400 is known as Russia’s most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defence system. The US has already imposed sanctions on Turkey under the CAATSA for the purchase of a batch of S-400 missile defence systems from Russia.
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