President Biden’s historic agreement to free prominent U.S. figures from Russian prisons has sparked debate over the high cost and strategic wisdom of such an exchange, with Republicans and some Democrats warning it will only embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin and his fellow adversaries.
For decades, presidential administrations and Congress have wrestled with how to prevent and respond to hostage taking and politically motivated arrests of Americans, a problem rooted in extortion, but where each case is unique.
“It’s easy for people who aren’t currently in power to say, ‘Oh, that’s a terrible deal. Why did they do that?’ But if you go back through the record, I don’t think hostage takers give hostages back for free,” said Jason Resian, a Washington Post columnist who was imprisoned in Iran for 544 days before being released in a multi-layered deal that included a prisoner swap during the Obama administration.
“They don’t take hostages for fun. They do it because they see an opportunity.”
As the Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump bragged that he could have made a better deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin than Biden could to secure the release of people who have been wrongfully imprisoned.
Biden’s multi-layered deal, which would free 16 people in U.S. and European prisons in exchange for eight Russians, appears to hinge on Germany’s decision to release a convicted Russian assassin, Vadim Krasikov, who was serving a life sentence for the 2019 murder of a Georgian Chechen rebel.
“We would have had him back, we wouldn’t have had to pay anything, we wouldn’t have had to let some of the world’s great killers go free,” Trump said in an interview with Fox, referring to Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and others who were released as part of the deal.
Asked by a reporter at the White House to respond to Trump’s allegations, Biden asked, “Why didn’t you do this when you were president?”
Paul Whelan, who was released in Biden’s prisoner swap, was arrested in 2018 during Trump’s term. Trump said he rejected a deal to release convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout to secure Whelan’s release. American Trevor Reed was also arrested by Russia during the Trump administration but released under Biden in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug smuggling. Bout was then traded to secure the release of WNBA star Britney Griner, who is in Russian custody in December 2022.
Trump claims he has sacrificed nothing to free Americans imprisoned or held hostage overseas, yet his track record of freeing Americans held overseas is filled with prisoner swaps, terrorist releases, diplomatic negotiations and other deals.
Trump says he secured the release of 59 Americans during his first term.
Those deals included the release of three senior Taliban leaders from Afghan prisons in 2019. America and AustraliaIn 2020, the Trump administration secured the release of two Americans Tehran is holding Syrian militants in exchange for the return of about 250 Yemenis to the Syrian capital, Sanaa, who are being held by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
President Trump has also engaged in one-for-one swaps to free Americans, swapping an Iranian scientist convicted of violating sanctions for American scholar Wang Xiyue in 2019.
After his release from an Iranian prison, Wang criticized the Democratic Party for its weak foreign policy. “Fair discussion” Trump could have gotten a better deal.
“I was arrested in Iran during the Obama presidency, and Princeton’s fancy ties to the Obama administration made no difference to me,” he said.Post to social media site XOn Thursday.
“Trump’s Iran deal that freed me gave Iran almost nothing. The United States can only make such deals with a strong foreign policy posture, and the Biden administration does not have that.”
President Trump’s allies pushed this line of attack following the return of four Americans from Russia.
“Essentially, you’ve traded journalists for murderers and thieves. You’ve traded rifles for spoons,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said on Fox News.
But Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, struck a more subdued tone, describing Biden’s deal as an “exorbitant price” and calling for a redoubled effort to bring back two Americans still imprisoned in Russia.
This includes Mark Fogel, an American who worked as a teacher in Russia. Fogel was arrested in 2021 for possessing marijuana for medical use. He was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Lawmakers have called on the State Department to classify Fogel as “wrongfully detained,” a classification that was also applied to the three released Americans.
Ksenia Karelina, a dual U.S.-Russian citizen who was visiting Russia to visit family, was detained in February and charged with treason. Russian security services accused her of raising funds for the Ukrainian military. Her family said she donated $51.80 to charities providing humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
“We must redouble our efforts to secure their release, while also taking steps to prevent future hostage diplomacy,” Risch said in a statement.
That tone was reflected in a joint statement from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, who called for more efforts to stop rogue governments from imprisoning Americans.
“If we traded Russian criminals for innocent Americans, [Russian President Vladimir] “This is a reprehensible act by President Putin,” they said.
Resian, who sits on the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ bipartisan Commission on Hostage Taking and Unlawful Detention, said that overall, the tone of criticism of the deals to bring Americans home has softened in recent years.
“I think there’s an accepted recognition that when Americans who have been illegally held hostage overseas come home and are reunited with their families, it’s really unseemly to question whether that was the right thing to do,” he said.
“That wasn’t the case when I came back eight and a half years ago.”
Congress has sought to address hostage taking by nation-state actors. In 2020, Congress passed the Robert Levinson Corporate Hostage Rescue and Hostage Accountability Act, which provides the State Department with more resources to defend Americans taken overseas and to impose sanctions on hostage takers.
In 2022, President Biden signed an executive order to increase cooperation and communication between the State Department and the National Security Council in efforts to rescue Americans held captive overseas. The order also focused on strengthening warnings to Americans about dangerous locations around the world where there is a high risk of politically motivated arrests, kidnappings, and hostage situations.
But there are few actual deterrent efforts to stop hostage taking incidents in the first place.
“Governments will continue to do this until there is a higher, realistic cost to implement this. And that is really the crux of the issue that the committee is looking at,” Regian said of the committee on hostages and unlawful detention.
The committee’s co-chairs are Robert O’Brien, Trump’s former national security adviser and former chief hostage negotiator, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.Y., the Democratic nominee for president and former Democratic presidential nominee for Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
““What is a sensible, strong policy that would address a hostage crisis at this time? Surely there is such a policy. What would it look like? What should it look like? That’s what we’re trying to come up with,” Regian said.
Asked Thursday what more could be done to prevent countries from detaining Americans, Biden said the responsibility lies with the American people.
“We advise people not to go to certain places, we tell them what’s dangerous and what’s at risk,” he said.
