Trump protects Putin from Graham-Blumenthal bill

The late Senator Lindsey Graham with Trump. It was clear from the start that The Graham-Blumenthal Bill would do little, if anything, for Ukraine. The single most predictable action of the Trump second presidency happened just a few hours ago. Trump signed an executive order that exempted Russia from all of the key possible sanctions that could have been placed on it by the Graham-Blumenthal bill. Here is a link to the order and here is how it opens. The specific sanctions lifted (in other words, the ones that will not take place), include: The rate of duty on goods from the Russian Federation shall be increased by 500% ad valorem … The rate of duty on goods from the largest five importers of crude oil and natural gas that originated in the Russian Federation shall be increased by 100% ad valorem … The rate of duty on goods from the top five facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion shall be increased by 100% ad valorem … The increases in the rates of duty provided by this order shall apply in addition to any other duty, fee, tax, exaction, or charge applicable with respect to the good … Even more extraordinary, Trump made sure to waive the monitoring clause, which was supposed to be the tool to track what was happening in Russia on these issues. In other words, he has used Graham-Blumenthal to protect Russia further, which is the least surprising thing possible. Look, as was said in early September, this version of Graham-Blumenthal was always part of the Trump con and was never going to force Trump to do anything to hurt Putin, contrary to what its backers were proclaiming. By the way, Lindsey Graham himself, the chief proclaimer of this bill before his passing, was either a witting or an unwitting part of the con. He acted as if a bill such as this might help Ukraine, when it was never going to do so. The bill as constructed, if passed, was never going to be used to hurt Russia (or China) because Trump always held the ultimate power in his hands. So it was all a shell game being played to deceive people. Here was the conclusion of that section of the piece. So Graham-Blumenthal might not give him any more powers than those he believes he already has, and if it does give him more powers, it will not be used to help Ukraine or hurt Russia. That is why it is part of a con. So, all we are really left wondering now is whether the bill is used to hammer Ukraine’s European partners. It will certainly never be used on China, which is actually the country most at risk if you read the bill closely. However, the bill has achieved one important thing. It forced Trump to do a cravenly pro-Putin (and unpopular) move less than three weeks before the US midterm elections. It also forced him to do it at the end of a week in which he also made two other unpopular pro-Putin moves. These include the diesel purchase from Russia and the Starlink/Spaceshield freeze or limitation on Ukrainian military operations over Ukraine. In that sense, passing Graham-Blumenthal ended up being a good thing. Trump is already sweating about the damage his pro-Russian steps are doing to his own popularity and GOP prospects in the midterms. He would not have wanted to take such a step as exempting Russia at this time, but he had to because he was never going to allow a step to be taken that would do material damage to Putin’s Russia. So this will make his cravenness and Republican weakness to dictatorship and hostility to democracy a major news story for a while longer. It might empower a new Congress to take more aggressive action. That was the one good thing I could see from the bill long-term when I wrote in the September piece: However, the November elections do hold out the possibility of installing a new Congress which will try to take back the powers of the legislative branch and stand up to the White House. In that case, having a Congress that establishes that it can play an active role in tariffs/sanctions would be a useful precedent. Indeed anything now that establishes Congress’s power is a good thing. For those who say do not vote for it as it gives Trump power to tariff Europe / Japan / South Korea – well, he already seems to believe he has that power. If he then says, “Aha, Graham Blumenthal validates my power,” he is actually admitting Congress has a key role to play. That could bite him in the derriere starting in late January when the new Congress is seated. The vast majority of Americans will never vote on foreign policy, particularly for midterms. That has to be understood. But if this further makes it clear to the American people that the USA is being run by a pro-Putin crime syndicate that is spreading corruption far and wide, that might help sway a few votes. It is heartening to see, in one poll, that worry about corruption in the US government is now the number one concern of Americans. If that is true, this story will only reinforce that fear. So it was a good thing that Graham-Blumenthal was passed, an entirely predictable thing that Trump made sure that nothing was done to damage Russia with it – and all we can do is hope that it politically has the effect that it might on the US midterms. Phillips P. O’Brien is a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrew. This article was originally published here, on his Substack, Phillips’s Newsletter. It is republished with permission.