DISINFO: Washington Post: Biden is laying Russia sanctions trap for Trump
SUMMARY
The incoming US president will find it hard to roll back the restrictions, the newspaper reports. The administration of US President Joe Biden has set a sanctions trap for president-elect Donald Trump, making it politically and legally challenging to roll back sweeping measures targeting Russia’s energy sector, according to the article. The newspaper claims that Biden’s actions could create significant hurdles for Trump if he seeks to lift the restrictions.
RESPONSE
This is a disingenuous distortion of the original article in The Washington Post, which focuses on the imposition of sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies and 183 oil tankers. While the article states that moves by president Joe Biden in this regard “lay the groundwork for continued pressure on Moscow by President-elect Donald Trump” and that “the sanctions are authorised under laws that give Congress the power to object to any move to lift them”, it never frames this fresh wave of sanctions under the terms this disinformation story claims. For example, the article never talks about a “sanctions trap” or “creating hurdles for Trump” if the tries to lift these restrictions.
The article also quotes multiple US officials who explain that they are informing Trump’s transition team of every move they adopt, and that the incoming administration can take the measures they consider necessary about sanctions. The only reference to the Biden Administration trying to complicate things for the future Trump government is a quote of the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, who said that “the administration will try to leave the most difficult legacy possible in bilateral relations to Trump and his associates”.
Quoting Western legitimate sources while distorting their content to introduce a pro-Kremlin message as if it were part of the original story is a frequent pro-Kremlin manipulative technique.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Ukraine is struggling with flow of wounded soldiers according to CNN, that a Wall Street Journal article confirms that Biden was never in charge in the US, that according to the WSJ Europe’s full storage gas sites are in fact a reflection of its weakness and vulnerability, or that The Guardian exposed how US Democrats exploited irregularities in mail-in voting.