Trump authorises penalties on nations for wrongful detention of Americans

By Lauren Dezenski and Eric Martin

 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a designation for state sponsors of wrongful detention, giving the US new tools to punish countries that illegally detain American nationals and to deter citizens from traveling to those places.

The president on Friday criticized the approach of his predecessor, Joe Biden, in returning wrongfully detained US citizens, saying it left them vulnerable to be taken by adversarial governments.

 

“They have to respect your country. They respect you and they respect your country, they release it,” Trump said at the White House, also referring to former President Barack Obama. “We’ve gotten a lot of people out and we’ll continue.”

 

 

The new measure, modeled after the designation for state sponsors of terrorism, would target nations that detain Americans to seek political leverage against Washington.  

 

The aim, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters ahead of the signing, is to deter those countries from holding Americans against their will and to protect US sovereignty. The order aims to give the secretary of State better means to address the issue, according to the officials, including sanctions against offending countries and travel restrictions on where US passport holders may go.

 

The senior officials said the current Trump administration has secured the release of 72 Americans.

 

Both Trump and Biden negotiated prisoner swaps to help free Americans being held overseas on charges the US cast as unjustified. Biden in 2022 secured the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner, who had been given a nine-year sentence by a Russian court on drug charges, in exchange for the release of arms dealer Viktor Bout.

 

Trump at the time criticised the Biden administration, saying that Marine veteran Paul Whelan should have been freed instead. Biden later negotiated the release of Whelan and other American citizens in another swap.

 

After returning to office, Trump cut a deal with Russia to release American school teacher Marc Fogel, who had been convicted of drug smuggling for trying to enter the country with medical marijuana. Trump at the time called the release a sign of “goodwill” between Washington and Moscow as he moved to engage Russia in a bid to end its war on Ukraine.

 

Diane Foley, the mother of James Foley — an American journalist taken hostage in Syria and ultimately killed by ISIS in 2014 — has been a prominent advocate for creating the wrongful detention designation. Foley, in a Washington Post op-ed in August, called on Congress to pass the Countering Wrongful Detention Act, which would allow the secretary of State to designate foreign governments as state sponsors of unlawful or wrongful detention. 

 

“The Trump administration should swiftly exercise this new authority to signal that engaging in hostage diplomacy has consequences. Designated states could face visa restrictions, sanctions, controls on U.S. exports, reductions or elimination of foreign assistance, and asset seizures,” Foley wrote.