Merkel Is Angry with America over Russia Sanctions but Will Do Nothing

There’s no doubt that S. 722 – which passed the Senate by a vote of 98-2, with only Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders voting No – is a terrible piece of legislation. Its fundamental purpose is to tie President Trump’s hands so that he cannot exercise his constitutional authority to conduct relations with foreign states. Specifically, Senators of both parties want to ensure that he doesn’t have the ability to reach out and normalize ties with Moscow. To do that, a super-majority of Senators is willing to violate every principle of international law and comity, as well as damaging relationships with our top security and trade partners.

Even the broad authority for the president to waive sanctions when he deems it in the national interest, a standard feature in U.S. sanctions legislation, is denied Trump in this bill without Congressional permission. Whether this defect may be remedied in the House of Representatives is unclear. (Meanwhile, the power of Congress to decide upon war continues to be usurped by the Executive Branch without a murmur of protest. As the late Joseph Sobran once observed, the nice thing about the U.S. Constitution is that it poses no serious threat to our form of government

The sanctions bill, if it becomes law, will be just another illustration that Germany and all other members of NATO and the EU are vassal states of Washington.

What sense does any of this make in terms of U.S. national interests? The key is Rapoza’s observation that «Trump has been beat up so severely on Russia that defending any sort of detente with the Kremlin seems futile.» As with the worsening danger of U.S.-Russian confrontation in Syria, American policy on Europe, Ukraine, and Russia, along with related energy issues, is still in the hands of the Swamp Creatures. Nothing good can come of it unless and until Trump manages to gain effective control of the government of which he is the constitutionally elected head.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/06/23/merkel-is-angry-with-america-over-russia-sanctions-but-will-do-nothing.html