REUTERS
The Trump administration is levying new sanctions on Russia it hopes will force it to comply with a Cold War-era nuclear arms treaty it has violated by deploying a banned cruise missile, according to a senior administration official, Politico reports.
The Commerce Department will punish Russian companies that have provided technology to help develop the new weapon, which was outlawed by the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by the United States and then-Soviet Union in 1987, according to Politico.
The pact banned missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers, which when deployed on Europe's periphery were seen as highly destabilizing because they would provide little advance notice of attack — and could carry a nuclear warhead.
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The goal, the official said, is to signal to Russia that the Trump administration will take treaty violations seriously and to “change the economic calculus” of Putin’s government.