printSigning a punitive bill against another people for “the sake of national unity” is a terrible thing to do. Yet that’s just what President Trump has done.
What happened to the famous veto? President Donald Trump promised his base to restore relations with Russia, but has succumbed, instead, to all the pressure ploys levied against Russia by America’s deranged lawmakers.
POTUS is signing sanctions into law against Russia to curry favor with an establishment that hates him and wants to trip him up. These sanctions don’t benefit the American people; only the sinecured statists in DC. Most of the president’s administrative and cabinet appointments have followed the same logic: pleasing the Deeps Statists.
[POTUS] said he signed the bill for “the sake of national unity” and hopes there will “be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues so that these sanctions will no longer be necessary.”
You can’t stick it to a country, however defanged economically and militarily (Russia), and expect goodwill to follow.
The bill limits the president’s ability to lift or waive sanctions against Russia and keeps in place sanctions the Obama administration imposed last year. It allows the U.S. to deny entry and revoke visas for individuals who have engaged in certain activities, such as selling arms to the Syrian government and abusing human rights.
The always plain-spoken and perceptive Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, described “the move as a humiliating defeat for Trump. … “The hope for improving our relations with the new U.S. administration is now over,” said Medvedev, who served as Russian president in 2008-2012 before stepping down to allow Vladimir Putin to reclaim the job.”
For his part, “Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will expel 755 US diplomatic staff and could consider imposing additional measures against the United States as a response to new US sanctions.”
Putin said in an interview televised on state television on Sunday that he ordered the move because he “thought it was the time to show that we’re not going to leave that without an answer”.
He, however, ruled out any immediate measure against the US. “I am against it as of today,” Putin said in an interview with Vesti TV.
Moscow ordered the US on Friday to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two US diplomatic properties after the US House of Representatives and the Senate approved new sanctions on Russia.
Russia said the US had until September 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people, matching the number of Russian diplomats left in the US after Washington expelled 35 Russians in December.
How is this good for Americans? For Russians? How is this good for anyone but the John McCain foreign policy posse?