After weeks of saying that it was unnecessary to sanction Russia, despite legislation that mandated new sanctions, the embarrassing fact that his good friend Vladmir Putin authorized the use of a genuine WMD on British soil has apparently spurred Trump into taking very limited action.
The new punishments include sanctions on the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm that produced divisive political posts on American social media platforms during the 2016 presidential election. Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin, a financial backer to the Internet Research Agency with deep ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, is also included.
Prigozhin is one of the 13 Russians already under indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Trump appears to be counting this as action taken via the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.
Trump signed the bill reluctantly in August, claiming it impinged upon his executive powers and could dampen his attempts to improve ties with Moscow.
On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Theresa May expelled more than half the staff of the Russian embassy in London, and spoke before the UN. Following her appearance, a joint statement from France, Germany, the US and UK condemned the Russian action.
The statement says: "It is an assault on UK sovereignty and any such use by a State party is a clear violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and a breach of international law. It threatens the security of us all."
The sanctions imposed on Thursday do not mention the attack in the UK, but instead sanction individual Russians for their actions during the 2016 campaign and another cyber-attack.
The American sanctions announced on Thursday targeted many of the same Russian organizations and operatives identified by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, in an indictment that outlined an audacious attempt to spread disinformation and propaganda to disrupt American democracy and, eventually, influence the vote on behalf of Mr. Trump.
The additional names on the sanction list that were not part of Mueller’s indictment appear to be related to another cyber-security incident in which Russian state actors attempted to interfere with the US electric grid.
Most of those included in the sanctions were either organizations already under sanction following the invasion of Ukraine, or under indictment by Mueller.
The sanctions, targeting five Russian organizations and 19 individuals, will generally block them from traveling to the United States, freeze any assets in the country and bar American businesses and individuals from doing business with them. Among the organizations sanctioned were the Federal Security Service, the successor to the K.G.B. known by its Russian acronym F.S.B., and Russian military intelligence, known as G.R.U., although they, like a few others, were previously penalized under past actions for the intervention in Ukraine.
It seems unlikely that any of those under indictment was planning a US trip, or that they had substantial holdings in the United States. Which makes it unclear that these sanctions will have a significant effect.