Russia Sanctions: Treasury Department Makes Changes To Allow Exports Of US Tech Products

The U.S. Treasury Department has modified sanctions against the Kremlin and will allow American tech companies to export products to Russia, it announced Thursday.

The Treasury Department said it will allow U.S. tech companies to make limited transactions with Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), an intelligence agency, to export products to Russia, as long as they’re not used in Crimea and don’t violate other sanctions.

During the White House daily press briefing, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the administration was not easing sanctions against Russia.

“It’s a fairly common for Treasury, after sanctions are put in place, to go back and look at whether or not there needs to be specific carve-outs for different either industries or products and services,” he said from the White House. “It is a regular course of action that Treasury does quite often when sanctions are imposed.”

The sanctions against Russia were put in place in December 2016 in response to allegations that the Kremlin was behind the hacking of emails of top Democrats. U.S. intel officials believe Russia hacked Democrats to help Trump win the election last November.

Meanwhile, Trump has called for a better relationship with Russia. Earlier this month he suggested he was open to lifting sanctions on Russia if it helped the U.S. against terrorism.

“If you get along and if Russia is really helping us, why would anybody have sanctions if somebody's doing some really great things?” he told The Wall Street Journal.

However, he said he planned on keeping sanctions on Russia “at least a period of time."