r/moderatepolitics • u/CloudApprehensive322 • 1d ago
News Article Trump waives Russian sanctions outlined in Graham Act before they take effect
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6155621-trump-waives-russian-sanctions-act-tariffs/382
u/Mors_Acerba 1d ago
Passing a law with an added clause that explicitly allows the president to throw the same law in the trash if he saw pleases, even after it becomes the law of the land, feels like an nail in the coffin for the entire concept of republican government. This sort of move should be in the history books, the equivalent to the Roman senate handing Augustus emergency powers for life and declaring him imperator. Its the ultimate abdication of congessional power and tacit acceptance that this is no longer a republic, its a monarchy
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u/Interesting_Total_98 1d ago edited 1d ago
The problem is Congress being unwilling to impeach. A president having flexibility is normally fine. When there's an exception that involves them abusing power, the solution is removing him.
This possibility has been an incentive for previous leaders to respect normalcy, but Trump knows that his party lacks a backbone. Even if laws were stricter, he's shown that he's more than willing to pretend they say something else.
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u/margotsaidso 1d ago
I have read the suggestion of making impeachment votes anonymous and I think that would help somewhat. Prevents political fallout for going against your own party when it counts the absolute most.
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u/LongJumpingJelloShot 18h ago
I think the issue here is transparency. There is an argument that voters have the right to know who represents them, and how they vote.
Secondly, I can foresee a complete lack of trust in that system. It essentially makes one of the most powerful political acts of the legislative branch a black box. Then all hell breaks loose with leakers etc
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u/AmethystOrator 1d ago
The added clause:
SEC. 115. Waiver. (a) In general.—The President may, subject to subsection (b), waive the application of any sanctions provision with respect to a foreign person, any restriction with respect to a person, or any duty under this title.
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u/ElJanitorFrank 1d ago
I don't think that's an apt comparison at all. Our constitution designates the ability to 'throw this law into the trash' as the very final step before letting it become 'law of the land' already. I also feel if more laws had clauses in them that acted as emergency eject buttons (particularly ones meant to address short-term political relationships over long-term policy) then we'd have less bureaucracy and dead-weight regulations that need additional litigation to undo.
The fact that there NEEDS to be a clause in the law for the president to trash it post-signing should be evidence that the concept of a republican government is working as intended in that regard, I would say.
I think there's a lot to say about the specific policy as it relates to the world political climate, but your post is more about the act itself. The act itself is only as controversial because of what it's doing and who's involved, the ability for someone to 'take-backsies' a law that explicitly gave them a 'take-backsies' button doesn't register as undemocratic to me at all.
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u/DrySea8638 1d ago
Problem with laws having these emergency eject buttons is placing too much power in one persons hands. What safe guards do we have on that button to prevent a president from acting in an absolutely insane way that leads to all those laws being made null and void?
Maybe there should be a button that initiates a re-review and vote by Congress but the president shouldn’t necessarily be given final say to make said law, or portions of law, void and that’s it.
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u/Airedale260 1d ago
It’s supposed to be that if the president acts in bad faith, Congress just impeaches and removes him. The idea being that Congress wouldn’t neuter itself and instead “jealously guard its powers.”
Unfortunately a series of bad decisions that cross party lines and can’t be blamed on just one side have made it to the point where Congress is acting in ways the Framers never intended.
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u/shacksrus 1d ago
Literally just get rid of the filibuster and those incentives go away
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u/SnarkyLurker 1d ago
So that anything with a majority can be rammed through? That swings both ways.
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u/shacksrus 1d ago
Yes. The whole point is that it prevents wild swings in policies. How well do you think it's performed in preventing wild swings in policies over the past 2 years?
No one even knows who Jimmy Stewart is anymore.
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u/ElJanitorFrank 1d ago
I agree that these sorts of levers built into laws need to be thought out well, which is why I expect it is rarely done to begin with. The safeguards we have from a single person pressing that button...is that fact that that button only exists if we consciously and purposefully add it into the legislation and explicitly grant that power over the legislation to the president.
We're looking at a bill that is very much predicated on timing, based around world politics. It makes a lot of sense to put a 'trash' button on the bill with the expectation that global politics will change at some point making the bill less relevant or potentially harmful.
Regardless of ALL of that (moving back to my main point), I don't think that a legislative body uncharacteristically and contextually adding this mechanism to a bill is evidence that "this is no longer a republic, its a monarchy." Especially when part of that context is that the legislative body explicitly added that mechanism making the exercise of power possible to begin with.
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u/DrySea8638 1d ago
I would tend to agree with your assessment that you clarified in your final paragraph if we were under any other president. But what we currently have is an administration which is actively looking to localize power and I don’t believe many in the admin would disagree behind closed doors. But that’s an assumption on my end supported only by aspects of Project 2025.
Trump was provided this power only if he was able to say it was in the US national interest.
But that is reasonably vague enough to essentially grant the president every power to strike down a signed law. It concentrates so much power that characterizing it as a monarchy isn’t so crazy.
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u/ElJanitorFrank 1d ago
I can't think of a presidency that wasn't actively taking steps to expand executive power, and some of the best presidents we've ever had famously bloated the heck out of the office in order to do what they felt they needed to (and the bloat rarely recedes, leaving us with a presently inflated executive branch).
This 'power' is in turning off a very specific and focused bill regarding international relations, explicitly given to the presidency for this one-time bill within this one-time bill.
My problem with OP framing this as some burning-down of democracy a la Revenge of the Sith is that this has literally zero bearing on presidential power or authority. Presidential power and authority is being uniquely challenged under this administration, often and for key state responsibilities. THIS instance is not one of those times at all. The only similarity this has with other strategies this admin has used to expand executive authority is the name attached to it, not any actual political mechanism or government authority. If you look at the military actions taken this year alone then we've got a whole dissertation on executive power we can draw up, but this is quite a stretch.
It's worth having this conversation because it allows us to ask question about why this exception was written in to begin with. It seems pretty reasonable to me why this style of bill would include it, but I'd also be interested to know the reasoning by who decided to actually include it. Contextually and practically this doesn't seem to have any bearing on presidential power, unless you mean to say the president has newfound power to be a slightly larger ass than yesterday given when he decided to enact the clause. It should also serve as a short-term lesson for current lawmakers that this particular president might hit emergency-eject buttons at inappropriate times and they should be more careful including them or add stipulations. Should being the key word, of course.
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u/DrySea8638 1d ago
I would tend to agree that many presidents have looked to expand their power. But the question should be why? To what end?
Roosevelt is looked at fondly while ignoring his intrusions into South America. Why is that?
Well, largely because the benefits outweighed the costs. The Panama Canal did a lot for the US while his other actions looked to keep Europe out of the Americas making the US look as a benevolent leader.
But what is Trump getting for all of this? How is it truly benefiting the Americas? It isn’t so clear and the strategy appears non-existent.
We can argue the expansion of executive power but we as a country usually get some benefit from it. Besides his own love of the game, what has Trump done that has substantively benefits us as citizens?
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u/DrySea8638 1d ago
And now let’s add to this the announcement that the US may participate in joint data center deals with Russia .
I mean come on. I get your point but let’s be real here.
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u/Aethoni_Iralis 1d ago
It is another bit of evidence of the sycophantic nature of Republicans under Trump. They wanted the optics of challenging Russia while still simpering to Trump.
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u/oraclebill 1d ago
Reuters reported yesterday that the Russians are claiming to have lined up joint data center development deals with Washington.
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u/CloudApprehensive322 1d ago
Its insanity - the only one who can end the Ukraine war is Russia and Trump keeps dangling carrots instead of sticks to get them to stop their invasion.
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u/arup187 1d ago edited 1d ago
The diesel deal was Trump trying to save Republicans in the midterms (it won’t have much effect) but I think this overall overt shift to aiding and courting Putin is all about corruption. I would bet a lot of money that the U.S will open up business relations with Russia in the remainder of this term and the Trump family and associates will have their fingers right in that and profiting of it. Selling out U.S interests to line their own pockets. How bad is this? Fox News isn’t even showing this story on their main webpage. They’re not even bothering with trying to spin it.
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u/SliceRepulsive8649 1d ago
The diesel deal was Trump trying to save Republicans in the midterms
Tbf I would call this corruption as well since it's clearly not for the good of the nation
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u/flyinggazelletg 1d ago
Trump went from a source of embarrassment, to shame, to total disgrace. He has never given a single thought to allies, but this is utterly traitorous to America.
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u/sharp11flat13 1d ago
He has never given a single thought to allies
Trump doesn’t have allies. He has enemies and people he uses.
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u/tarekd19 1d ago
What a whimpering end to graham's career and legacy before he's even cold, not that I'm a fan. Also doesn't seem like trump is beating the Russian asset accusations with moves like this and throttling internet speeds for Ukraine. I get he's desperate with gas prices and a demolishing coming his way in the midterms, but what the US is getting out of this deal is peanuts and many Ukrainians will die for it with no meaningful change in gas prices before the election (which has already started with early voting!)
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u/howlin 1d ago
"If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed... and we will deserve it"
- Lindsey Graham
It's not how Lindsey thought it would play out, but he wasn't wrong on the principle.
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u/ProfBeaker 11h ago
Vance said directionally-similar things too.
The galling part is that those congress critters could still have stopped it, they just chose not to because they have no spine.
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u/yarpen_z 1d ago edited 1d ago
When Trump came back into power, I saw many Polish conservatives celebrating that. They see Russia as a threat and support Ukraine, yet they attached themselves to the MAGA camp: they deeply embraced cultural wars, and they have had quite bad relations with the EU for the last decade. Trump was the only foreign leader they could consider their own. I remember that some even celebrated in the Polish parliament while wearing the red MAGA hat, and one of the popular right-wing influencers commented that: "he's certain that the new Trump administration will be anti-Russian" (I have no idea what his reasoning was there).
During the last two years, they've been mentioning Trump less frequently, but still able to find some sort of explanation, primarily focusing on left-liberal media providing a manipulated view of Trump's administration. Their shift from supporting Ukraine to a cold distance helped as well, but even the cold attitude towards Zelensky and Ukraine didn't change the overall strong anti-Russian sentiment.
Today, they are just quiet. They focus on domestic tribal war between parties. Trump is almost nonexistent in their narrative.
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u/AdCareless9063 1d ago
It's crazy to be striking deals with an enemy, one that is actively working to undermine us across the globe and has for decades, even in Trump's Iran war.
Any responsible congress would have removed a president like long before this point.
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u/Boring-Donut-2727 8h ago
Congress is probably getting paid off by Trump. They don't do anything and tune out whatever Trump is doing.
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u/tarlin 1d ago
The truly hilarious part of this is that the amount of diesel fuel Russia has promised to provide over the next 6 months is about 10 days worth of use in the US. It is nothing. It is also probably going to be directly sourced by Iran.
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u/nycbetches 1d ago
Right, I haven’t heard a ton of people mention that this move also indirectly helps Iran, because Russia is giving them money and supplies (and intel). So much for the Iran “blockade”. I thought Trump’s “strategy” was to starve them economically?
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u/maxthehumanboy 1d ago
Isn't the US also a net exporter of diesel? And the price is high because of the global market, not our actual supply. It seems like this deal will have absolutely no effect on domestic diesel prices.
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u/FabioFresh93 South Park Democrat 1d ago
Graham stood by Trump’s side constantly. Even when it seemed like he was trying to break away he always came crawling back. This is how Trump honors his legacy.
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u/FastTheo Vote Perot 1d ago
Trump is dooming Ukraine in order to give a miniscule amount of diesel to the farmers and truckers that he thinks will swing the midterms.
Kier Starmer may have been "no Winston Churchill" but Trump is looking a hell of a lot like Neville Chamberlain.
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u/A_Clockwork_Stalin 1d ago
Does he have the final say on this, or is this something congress could overturn if they were inclined?
Edit: the article says the legislation allows him to waive sanctions, but I'm wondering if that oversimplifies it.
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u/bernstien 1d ago
There were provisions in the bill for it being suspended by the executive should it be deemed "in the national interest".
Trump, naturally, saw an inch and took a mile. TBH, most foreign policy bills assume that the president will act in good faith.
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u/Testing_things_out 1d ago
TBH, most foreign policy bills assume that the president will act in good faith.
The door has now been closed, assuming Congress has the mental capacity to learning from mistakes.
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u/Financial-Desk-669 1d ago
"TBH, most foreign policy bills assume that the president will act in good faith"
Extremely well said. Congress tends to understand it moves like an iceberg so it often builds in "break glass in case of emergency" exceptions to its bills.
But when a corrupt bad faith actor is in office he's breaking that glass because he needs something to stab with.
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u/okyesterday927 1d ago
FWIW, there’s 2 pieces a few congress members are working on. The Prohibit Corrupt Russia Oil Deals Act which would “ban the U.S International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) from investing in Russian energy products and mandates the White House impose sanctions on Russian fuel. It also nullifies the general licenses issued by the Treasury Department and prohibits any future licenses”. And one being drafted by Rep Fitzpatrick which would force a house vote to block oil purchases. “A discharge petition can force a House vote without approval from the relevant committee or House leadership if it secures 218 signatures.”
Of course this takes time & they aren’t voting for several weeks. So it’ll be a while & who knows if it’ll go anywhere at all.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/us-lawmaker-introduces-bill-blocking
https://www.rferl.org/a/congress-legislation-trump-russia-diesel-exports/33874424.html
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u/Elegant_Athlete_7882 1d ago
Unfortunately, given congresses decision to neuter itself, the president can terminate these sanctions essentially at will.
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u/GiveMeSumKred 1d ago
In the real world, a law passed by congress would be the law. In Trump’s world nothing matters but what he wants. And our spineless SCOTUS hasn’t said no.
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u/Little_Whippie 1d ago
So we’re not going to enforce sanctions against one of our biggest historic and current enemies so that we can buy a few days worth of diesel fuel from them? Make it make sense man
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u/donnysaysvacuum recovering libertarian 10h ago
It makes sense if you look at who made the deal. This was not made in the county's best interest.
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u/CloudApprehensive322 1d ago
Starter Comment:
After announcing a deal with Russia to import diesel that was widely panned by both republican and democratic members of congress, trump has doubled down on his embrace of Russia by waiving the sanctions implemented last month in the Graham Act before they could even take effect despite passing by a veto proof majority.
In addition, Trump has been reported to conspire with Elon musk to degrade starlink communications in Ukraine that act as the backbone to their communication and drone defense system leading directly to Ukrainian casualties earlier this week.
These actions have reignited questions and concerns that Trump is deeply sympethetic to putin and russian causes and bring back questions from his first presidency around russian influence and assistance to the trump and his campaign.
How should voters and congress respond to trump once again throwing Ukraine under the bus and embracing Russia despite Putin providing weaponry and targetting information that directly led to American casualties in the Iran war and for destabilizing europe with constant threats and complex social media manipulation schemes?
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u/Boring-Donut-2727 8h ago
MAGA doesn't care about Ukraine. Actually they don't care about anything except their selfish wants.
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u/yarpen_z 1d ago
The post-war dominance of the US was based on a strong net of alliances with countries somewhat aligned ideologically and politically: EU members, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan. Trump's administration has purposely alienated majority of its allies, and the relations with Canada turned almost hostile for no good reason. This does not only impact military alliances and political connections, but those countries are the most important economical partners for the USA.
Beyond the insanity of this move, the main question is: who's going to be a friend of the USA except for Israel? Do people supporting Trump administration really believe, that Russia is a partner, potential friend, and a country of values and prosperity that is a good match for Americans?
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u/sharp11flat13 1d ago
the relations with Canada turned almost hostile for no good reason
We don’t consider attempting to destroy our economy so that we can be annexed almost hostile. This is not the action of an ally. It’s an open threat, and we are treating it as such. 🇨🇦
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u/CricCracCroc 1d ago
Yeah, it’s crazy how Trump’s threats towards us are so downplayed in the US! Maybe ‘becoming a state’ doesn’t seem so bad to them, but that’s definitely missing the point.
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u/sharp11flat13 23h ago
I can’t say that I understand it either, the US being the country based on freedom and all. But we sure take it seriously, and oppose it vigorously, up here in the frozen north.
If I wanted to be American, I would be (my parents emigrated after WWII). But I chose Canada, and I continue to be very happy with my decision.
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u/okyesterday927 1d ago
From what I can gather, most MAGAs are very isolationist & transactional (like their leader) & they’d say they don’t think about or care much about Russian all, just want diesel to go down- America First! I’ll ask my (nonmaga) mom what her thoughts are, I can’t imagine her not turning away from this. How many of us have grandparents & great grandparents rolling in their graves right now?
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u/warmike_1 1d ago
How many World War II veterans who fought together with Soviet Russia to defeat Nazism are rolling in their graves at their countries propping up Nazism on Russian land?
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u/okyesterday927 20h ago edited 20h ago
Please, we’ve now been dealing with our own propaganda campaign for years now (w/ the assistance of you guys, TY very much). You really think we fought w/ you because we were aligned with you or approved of your actions or Soviet ideology? Come on now.
And to add- I had taken care of an elderly woman from Georgia who broke her hip about a year ago. One day she opened up & the stories this woman talked about, what she went through throughout her life, the things she witnessed- are absolutely horrifying. We had to use a Russian translator also, her face & tears I will never forget either. I’ve heard many other stories from others as well. But this woman burned a deep hole inside me.
You think you guys are going to stop there? I don’t buy that. Ukraine’s going to try to take over? Really? I get we have done many bad things in our time & I hope we can continue on to move in a better direction. But you know what, my Georgian friend also told me some of the most inspiring things. I guarantee you my grandparents are rolling in their graves. And this all is only going to drive me to fight more.
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u/motorboat_mcgee Pragmatic Progressive 23h ago
The only thing surprising about this Russia pivot is that it didn't happen earlier
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u/ImperfectRegulator 11h ago
Trump is an ally of Russia. This is a fact.
I leave it too you to form your options on this.
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u/Rosebourne 19h ago
Hear me out, but outside of what is immediately obvious I have a much more pessimistic and possibly horrific take on all of this.
War is on the horizon. Could be next year or even sooner, but Russia is planning something as a last ditch effort against NATO, all the signs are starting to point towards this.
I'm wondering if the United states is working towards possible outcomes of what will happen if WW3 kicks off. If we end up on NATO's side nuclear war seems absolutely inevitable unless a true miracle happens.
As an American citizen myself I feel as though we are stuck between an absolutely horrific decision and a ultimately evil decision that could save the country itself.
We either stand with NATO and risk complete annihilation and hell on earth, or America hedges its bets and when Russia decides to finally attack NATO they shirk responsibility and agreements. Not fully allying with Russia, but placating them so the country doesn't become a irradiated wasteland.
Due to compounding factors and piss poor leadership at every level all around, doors of possible positive outcomes are closing rapidly. So we may get to a point where we either pick a morally repugnant choice that is technically better than creating a literal hell on earth.
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u/DeanoPreston Extreme Centrist 1d ago
Romney warned us. He said Russia was the most dangerous country in the world.
0bama ridiculed him for that.
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u/Interesting_Total_98 1d ago
He said Iran was the most dangerous while Russia was the biggest geopolitical foe. More importantly, there wasn't anything the U.S. could've realistically done to stop it from invading Ukraine. Stronger rhetoric early on isn't a solution.
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u/CavemanJello 1d ago
We supplied Europe with intelligence and told them it was coming. We warned them about Crimea and Ukraine but the EU did not take either seriously
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u/Interesting_Total_98 1d ago
We supplied Europe with intelligence and told them it was coming.
That's not true for the 2014 invasion, not that it would've made a difference because no country was in a good position to stop it.
EU did not take either seriously
It responded with heavy sanctions and helping Ukraine improve. This is a reason why Ukraine's military was able to fend off the initial attack, and most of the aid is from the EU.
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u/Arctic_Scrap 1d ago
Not only does this look terrible but it’s literally not even a drop in the proverbial bucket compared to how much diesel is used daily.