Ed Royce Calls on Senate to Pass Syria Allies Sanction Bill

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce Thursday called on the Senate to pass legislation to put pressure and sanctions on countries that have enabled Syrian President Bashar Assad to commit atrocities.

"We have my legislation over in the Senate, passed unanimously through the House, in order to put additional pressure and sanctions on those who have enabled Assad to commit atrocities," the California Republican told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" co-host Bill Hemmer.

"That would be Iran and Russia. We need to get that bill out of the Senate and onto the president's desk."

Last year, when Assad's forces dropped chemical weapons on civilians, Trump ordered a missile strike on that damaged a Syrian air strip and killed some persons who had delivered the chlorine gas, said Royce, and with last week's suspected gas attacks, more action will need to be taken.

"You do not allow an attack on civilians, especially when you have U.S. troops in uniform still carrying out the fight against ISIS in this theater," said Royce. "You don't allow that to transpire without deterrents."

There has been a broad agreement since the First World War against the use of chemical weapons, and if Assad has once again used them, "then we need to take action."

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's stance on Russia has been changing, and that's because Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggressive has been "amped up."

"His attempts to involve himself in elections across all of Europe as he has done this worldwide," said Royce.

"Here as well, is still increasing rather than decreasing. The aid and comfort he is giving Assad, including with the use of chemical weapons, is an additional concern. You take the totality of that and it's clear we need to ramp up sanctions."

"The sanctions recently enacted by Trump has already dropped the value of the ruble by four percent and the Russian stock market by 8 percent," Royce said. "This is putting real pressure on the oligarchs around Putin to get a change in conduct."

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