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Why did Washington sanction Turkey over S-400s?
Summary
A retrospective on the US decision to penalise a NATO-era ally under a law aimed at Iran, North Korea and Russia.
What did it mean when Washington sanctioned an ally over a Russian weapons purchase? On 14 December 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the United States had imposed sanctions on Turkey over its acquisition of the S-400 missile defence system from Russia. This retrospective looks at 15 December 2020, the day after the announcement, and at what the step represented.
The measure was taken under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, known as CAATSA. It was the first time the law had been used to penalise a US ally.
The law behind the move
CAATSA is a US federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia. It works by preventing US companies from doing business with sanctioned entities. The Senate passed it on 27 July 2017 by 98 votes to 2, after the House had approved it 419 to 3. President Donald Trump signed it into law on 2 August 2017, though he believed the legislation was seriously flawed.
The Turkish case therefore applied a law written with Russia as one of its targets to a country that had bought Russian military equipment. Pompeo's announcement tied the sanctions directly to the S-400 acquisition.
