Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker said his chamber would likely cut out its North Korea provisions. | Getty GOP moves toward solution on Russia sanctions bill But the White House has avoided taking any firm position on the bill.

House and Senate Republicans clashed Wednesday over a bipartisan package of sanctions targeting Russia, Iran and North Korea before appearing to resolve a dispute that threatened to delay the bill's arrival on President Donald Trump's desk.

Less than 24 hours after the sanctions deal passed the House 419-3, Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said Wednesday morning that his chamber would likely cut out the measure’s North Korea provisions — which were added to the mix in the last lap of talks on the legislation at the behest of House GOP leaders — and send it back across the Capitol. House Republican leaders countered by urging the Senate to act quickly on the bill and warning that any changes would postpone Trump's looming decision on a veto until September.


Corker, a leading author of the initial package of penalties against Russia and Iran, had stayed conspicuously silent as senior House and Senate negotiators in both parties unveiled a deal Saturday that allows Congress to block Trump from easing or ending any sanctions against Moscow.

His critical comments Wednesday risked reopening fellow Republicans to Democratic charges that they are delaying the bill's final passage at the behest of a president who has long dismissed U.S. intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia meddled in the presidential election. But further political headaches for the GOP appeared to be averted Wednesday night, when Corker announced that he had reached agreement with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on a solution that would pave the way for final approval of the sanctions bill.

"Going forward, the House has committed to expeditiously consider and pass enhancements to the North Korea language, which multiple members of the Senate hope to make in the very near future," Corker said in a statement Wednesday night.

But earlier in the day, he had rattled the House GOP with critical remarks about its North Korea addition.

The North Korea sanctions are "something we have never sat down and worked through the language on like we did with the other pieces" of the sanctions package, Corker said Wednesday morning at an event hosted by The Washington Post. "So we have people in our body that want to weigh in on those issues."

"What likely will happen is we will strip out the North Korea piece and send it back to them so that the two pieces that we’ve negotiated together will remain intact," Corker added.

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McCarthy, who first pressed to add North Korea to the bill, responded by urging the Senate to "act expeditiously" on the bill that cleared the lower chamber Tuesday.

“There has long been agreement that North Korea sanctions are due — especially given new reports that North Korea will be able to reliably deliver a nuclear weapon to the continental United States by the end of next year," McCarthy spokesman Matt Sparks wrote in an email.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) sounded a similar note in a Wednesday statement, noting that the Senate failed to act on the House's North Korea sanctions "even after Kim Jong Un launched a new [intercontinental ballistic missile] that could soon be capable of hitting California."

"Further delay on North Korea is completely unacceptable," Royce added.

Corker said later Wednesday that House Republicans were fully aware of his objections to the addition of the North Korea penalties before they trumpeted a bipartisan, bicameral deal on Saturday.

"Every office, every meeting — it would be better to deal with North Korea at another time," Corker said, outlining his communications with House counterparts. "We expressed concerns about it. They decided to add it, and I don't take affront. I'm just trying to pass a piece of legislation. We've had a good working relationship."

It remained unclear Wednesday night what specific new action on North Korea that Senate Republicans might seek from the House. Corker said that some Republicans want to add language giving Congress the power to block Trump from making changes to North Korea sanctions — similar to the legislation's Russia handcuffs on the president, which the White House has resisted.

The White House has avoided taking any firm position on the sanctions bill, which would allow Congress to block Trump from easing or ending penalties against Vladimir Putin's government. After initially saying they would press House Republicans to give Trump more leeway to warm relations with Putin, Trump aides appeared to concede when Saturday's deal included none of the major changes they had sought by signaling they would accept the technical tweaks that bipartisan negotiators did agree to.

But after saying Sunday that Trump would accept the deal, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders indicated Tuesday that Trump had not yet decided whether to sign the bill.

The further delay in congressional consideration of the sanctions allows the White House to further forestall the decision on whether to veto the legislation, knowing that Trump would almost surely be overridden by Congress.

House Democrats had raised concerns about Corker's resistance to the addition of North Korea sanctions before Republican leaders teed up a vote on Tuesday and expressed concern Monday that the GOP had pressed ahead regardless.

“I don’t know who decided that, because Leader McCarthy's office posted a bill online, everyone was on the same page," one House Democratic aide said. "Because, obviously, they weren’t.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's top Democrat, New York Rep. Eliot Engel, said he had not endorsed adding North Korea to the sanctions measure for fear it would slow down its progress.

Asked why House Republicans went ahead with the addition despite concerns from Corker, Engel reiterated longstanding Democratic worries about the White House's lobbying against the sanctions legislation: "Some might say that certain people don't want the bill to pass."

In the Senate, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) reiterated the consensus position of his caucus: that the House-passed bill, with North Korea sanctions included, should get sent to the White House before the August recess.

"Even as we debate other items here on the floor, we should not delay this legislation any longer," Schumer said.

Corker's Democratic counterpart on the foreign relations panel, Maryland Sen. Ben Cardin, told reporters that he has no issue with the House's North Korea language, which passed on a 419-1 vote in May.

Heather Caygle and Negassi Tesfamichael contributed to this report.