US lawmakers table bill seeking CAATSA waiver for Quad partners

WASHINGTON: A top Republican Senator has introduced a legislation in the US Senate asking President Biden to certify to the Congress that any Quad country against whom they impose punitive CAATSA sanctions is not taking part in the national security related quadrilateral deliberations.
Introduced by Republican senator Ted Cruz from Texas and co-sponsored by Senator Todd Young from Indiana and Marshall Roger from Kansas, also Republicans, for all practical purposes discourages the president from imposing the punitive provisions of CAATSA against India for buying the S-400 surface-to-air missile system from Russia. The bill was introduced in the Senate on October 28 and the text of the bill was not yet made public by the Congress till Monday morning.
The Quad comprises India, the US, Japan and Australia. President Biden had hosted the first in-person summit of the Quad grouping on September 24 at the White House. Read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs for necessary action to ensure that the Quad country against whom the US is seeking to impose CAATSA sanctions is not part of Quad deliberations on national security purposes. If passed by Congress, the bill in all likelihood would throw Quad, an ambitious foreign policy project of the Biden administration, into disarray if the US imposes CAATSA sanctions on India. While the headline and summary of the bill, which have been made public so far, does not mention India, it is the only Quad country that faces CAATSA sanctions.
The bill was introduced in the Senate a day after two powerful US Senators — Mark Warner and John Cornyn — urged Biden not to impose provisions of CAATSA against India, urging him to grant a national interest waiver to as provided under CAATSA as this is in America’s national security interest. “We strongly encourage you to grant a CAATSA waiver to India for its planned purchase of the S-400 Triumph surface-to-air missile system. In cases where granting a waiver would advance the national security interests of the US, this waiver authority, as written into the law by Congress, allows the President additional discretion in applying sanctions,” the two Senators wrote.