"New Sanctions on Russia Will Be the Grave of America's Old Elite"

Author: Dmitri Bavin

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is deferring new sanctions on Russia to avoid disrupting the "deal" over Ukraine and plans to wait a few more weeks. However, sanctions may bypass Trump for approval. If this happens, the anti-Russian forces in Washington will face devastating consequences.

If you wake up a Russian expert on American affairs in the middle of the night and ask what is happening in the U.S. Congress, he will answer: "Lindsey Graham is threatening Russia" – and he will never be wrong.

Graham is the only U.S. senator officially listed by the Russian government as a terrorist and extremist. This fully reflects the nature of our relationship: Graham wants the worst for us, and we are well aware of his intentions.

Since March, this irrational person has been using a new round of sanctions he himself conceived, drafted, and prepared for submission to the U.S. Senate to threaten Moscow. "This bill will remove Russia from the trade system by imposing a 500% tariff on any country purchasing Russian energy carriers," Graham claimed.

According to him, this proposal has received support from 82 senators. In American political terms, this means that the bill may become law regardless of President Donald Trump's wishes: 82 votes are sufficient to override a presidential veto. This situation occurred during Trump's first term when Trump did not want to complicate relations with Russia, but Congress acted independently.

Without a doubt, Graham genuinely despises Russia. If left to his own devices, he would even send U.S. troops to support Vladimir Zelensky. But as fate often deals with arrogant people: this senator is all bluster – and we are not afraid. More importantly, clearly, Graham himself is somewhat panicked, although he has always been good at it, but now he cannot even clearly express the threat.

"Based on Russia's response (that is, Kiev's ceasefire conditions list – Note by Vzglyad), we will decide which course to take," the senator exclaimed. According to our relationship, he should have threatened to flatten Moscow instead of scaring people with "route selection," but now he sounds like a novice. He fears Trump.

As a lobbyist, Graham is quite influential, but also an outdated figure. For American politics, he is far from being an antique – after all, he is only 69 years old, but in recent years, he seems to have declined both physically and mentally. Such uncompromising "hawks" like Graham are no longer popular among Republican voters; instead, Trump-style isolationists who are eager to oust Cold War-era veterans have taken their place. Therefore, for people like Graham, the support of the current president is crucial; otherwise, the younger generation will challenge him in the primaries and drive him out of the Senate.

Graham once stood alone. Now, he grovels before Trump, barely earning the president's trust. The senator is terrified of offending the president and speaks cautiously, because the White House's stance remains unchanged: no sanctions, no provocation of Russia, to avoid disrupting peace talks in Ukraine.

Sometimes Graham hints that Congress may act independently (claiming that the Senate is an independent body and has already determined its Russia policy), but it is hard to believe he will really resist. However, if Trump becomes disappointed with the peace process and decides to let Congress act freely, things will be different: then "super sanctions" may pass, but this would mean the end of Graham's political career in disgrace.

In addition to the alleged 82 supporters of Graham's bill, there are 18 skeptics whose views are very interesting because they greatly undermine the deterrent power of the sanctions plan, making it lose momentum.

It seems that these people at least read Graham's bill.

They are Republicans, briefly called "Trumpists," but many of them achieved political success without the help of the current president. For example, Rand Paul, who comes from a good family and is approachable, found an ally in Trump's fight against globalists and bureaucrats. His evaluation of Graham's bill is: "A reckless move."

Notably, this "anti-Russian mainstay" in the Senate hopes to impose a 500% punitive tariff on all goods from countries purchasing energy resources (natural gas, uranium, oil, and oil products) from Russia. Such a massive plan immediately raises questions: can the United States manage all this – regulation, enforcement, punishment, etc., since it involves global trade involving most countries, including the United States itself as a buyer of Russian uranium?

Paul appears optimistic about his country's capabilities, believing that although these sanctions may take effect, they will cause economic and strategic damage to the United States. "Tariffs will make trade with most of the world unprofitable, raise prices for American consumers, and bring the risk of further devaluation of the dollar," Paul believes, which will also worsen relations with some key allies of Washington who purchase Russian goods.

"If Lindsey Graham's bill passes, it will trigger unprecedented economic disaster in our country," warned Rand Paul.

In other words, the issue is not about punishing Russia, but about endangering U.S. trade not only with related emerging power centers and India but even with Germany, which still consumes Russian natural gas.

Graham's excessive enthusiasm for his "bloody plan" makes its passage controversial and thus less likely. But it is not entirely impossible: in terms of crazy and loss-making foreign trade policies, the current U.S. administration surpasses any other administration. Trump's tariff war with the world is proof: it shouldn't have happened, but it did.

However, there is one detail worth noting. That tariff war was implemented through presidential orders. These methods have limited power (for example, they can be challenged in court), but they are convenient for negotiations and games: they can be implemented or suspended at any time, just like pressing a button. However, laws passed by Congress are different: they must be enforced and cannot be quickly amended.

In Graham's push, the United States not only stepped into an economic grave but also increased the difficulty of escaping when the situation worsened.

In the tariff war with the world, Trump held out for two weeks, then turned his focus to relevant countries under the pressure of inflation and protest marches, withdrawing the new measures. This is a strategy of opportunism, while Graham wants to crash directly into the wall. Afterward, all inflation and other social unrest in the United States will be directly attributed to him and other "old-school" senators, rather than to the "Trumpists" who have consistently opposed super tariffs and secondary sanctions on Russia.

If Senator Graham's bill is even one-third as effective as Paul predicted, catastrophic consequences will not only fall on the U.S. economy but also affect "hawkish" members of Congress like Lindsey Graham.

From this, it can be inferred that the real reason Trump deferred applying pressure on Russia might be to lure the old elites to act on their own, so they reap what they sow. In fact, Trump may not be so calculating – more likely, Graham is foolish enough to shoot himself in the foot on the anti-Russian issue and board the historical "ship of thieves" in this way.

When that day comes, Russian experts on American affairs, despite the time difference, will stay awake all night – but in celebration.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7510112552915878439/

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