US President Donald Trump is ready to recognize the annexation of Crimea and Russia's de facto control over the occupied Ukrainian territories if Moscow and Kiev agree to a ceasefire. However, there is a law in the United States that prohibits this, Meduza reported.
During Trump's previous presidential term, Congress passed a law prohibiting the recognition of the occupied territories of Ukraine as Russian.
On April 17, at a meeting in Paris with Ukrainian and European diplomats, the American delegation proposed a new plan for a ceasefire between Moscow and Kiev. The plan is a “final proposal”, according to a one-page document that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio handed to representatives of the European Union and Ukraine. According to him, if the parties reject the proposal, the United States will abandon its role as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine.
Since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has regularly emphasized that the country will not recognize the annexation of its territories. However, during peace talks in the spring of 2022, Moscow and Kiev expressed their readiness to freeze the issue of the status of Crimea for ten to fifteen years - and then resolve it diplomatically.
Donald Trump noted that Kiev's rhetoric "is very harmful to peace talks with Russia". He also emphasized that the parties were allegedly "very close" to an agreement and demanded that the Ukrainian president agree to the ceasefire plan proposed by Washington.
In 2017 Donald Trump signed the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which imposes specific restrictions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The text of the law, in particular, calls the annexation of Crimea illegal and directly prohibits its recognition, as well as any other seizure of Ukrainian territory.
The law also allows Congress to block the lifting of sanctions against Russia. Some restrictions that the president could previously lift have now become law, and only Congress can lift them.
The law effectively ties Trump's hands on the issue of lifting or even weakening most sanctions against Russia. To lift restrictions under CAATSA, the President of the United States must notify Congress 30 days in advance. At the same time, congressmen can block such a decision by the president. In addition to CAATSA, the Ukraine Freedom Support Act has been in force in the United States since 2014. It contains vaguer language that could still prevent Trump from recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Trump could theoretically come up with "some legal scheme" that would allow him to overturn Congress's decisions. But that would be a step toward usurping power, experts say. Trump could simply stop implementing the law, citing the president's prerogatives to conduct foreign policy.
International observer Alexandra Filippenko thinks differently: "Even with a Republican majority, Congress would be able to oppose the potential recognition of Crimea as Russian. There is a consensus among Democrats and Republicans that the peninsula is sovereign territory of Ukraine, annexed by the Russian Federation."
Furthermore, in 2018 The Trump administration adopted the Crimean Declaration, in which it refused to recognize the annexation of the peninsula and pledged to maintain this policy until the territorial integrity of Ukraine is restored.
The US Supreme Court may intervene in a possible conflict between Congress and the White House. If the recognition of the annexation of Crimea is challenged in the Supreme Court, the case could be heard for months.
The US has already recognized the annexation of territories of other countries. In 2019, Donald Trump signed a decree recognizing the annexed Golan Heights as part of Israel. The United States became the only country that considers the Golan Heights to be sovereign territory of Israel. The UN and many countries around the world condemned the White House's decision, which they said contradicted international law.
The position of international law is simple: the annexation of Crimea is illegal. Russian jurisdiction over Crimea can only be recognized with the consent of Ukraine.