So let me get this straight, because I want to make sure I heard it right. Congress passed a big fancy sanctions bill named after the late Lindsey Graham. The president signed it in September. And then Friday night, two whole days before the thing was set to take effect on October 18, President Trump picked up a pen and waived the heart of it with an executive order saying it’s “in the national interests of the United States.”
Two days. Bless their hearts, they couldn’t even get the ribbon untied on this thing before somebody decided to cut it up for scrap.
Now the usual choir is singing from the usual hymnal. Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia says it’s a “gift” to Vladimir Putin. President Zelensky says it’s “unfortunate” that Washington decided to “completely disregard” the sanctions. And I’m sitting here with my coffee thinking: since when did Virginia Democrats and Kyiv get a vote on what America does with America’s money?
Here’s the part the evening news will say very fast, if they say it at all. Those sanctions included tariffs on Russian goods and penalties on anybody buying Russian oil and gas. And this comes right after the administration cut a deal to import Russian diesel. Analysts were warning, plain as day, that the new measures could push oil prices even higher while folks are already getting squeezed at the pump. The midterms are weeks away. You don’t need a degree from Georgetown to do this math. You need a receipt from the gas station.
That’s what “national interest” means when it’s used honestly. It means the family budget counts too. It means Washington isn’t allowed to light your wallet on fire just so a bunch of think-tank fellows can feel tough about Moscow over their catered lunches. The law itself, mind you, lets the president waive sanctions simply by telling Congress he’s decided they’re not in the national interest. He followed the letter of the law the swamp wrote. They’re mad he read their own bill.
And can we talk about the bill for a second? Congress passed something so aggressive that China and India, the two biggest buyers of Russian oil, were both hollering at us about it before it even landed. Beijing called it “long-arm jurisdiction,” and India warned it could wreck bilateral ties. When your sanctions plan has Beijing and New Delhi on the same page complaining about you, that’s not statesmanship. That’s a group project nobody proofread.
Now, I’ll be honest with you the way I’d be honest across a backyard fence: I don’t love everything about cozying up to Moscow, and I don’t think anybody in church Sunday morning does either. Russia isn’t our friend, and I’m not about to pretend otherwise. But there’s a difference between being tough and being theatrical. Tough is protecting your own people’s pocketbooks while keeping the existing sanctions, which this order does. Theatrical is passing a bill with a dead man’s name on it, holding a press conference, and then acting shocked when the man actually in charge of foreign policy acts like he’s in charge of foreign policy.
The Constitution gives the president the lead on dealing with foreign countries. Congress keeps trying to weld his hands to the desk anyway, and every administration in my lifetime has fought them on it. This time the fight lasted about as long as a church potluck casserole, and the permanent class in Washington is furious that their beautiful bill got benched before kickoff.
They’ll call it chaos. I call it a man doing exactly what he told you he’d do, which in this town apparently counts as a scandal. The sanctions that were already on Russia stay on Russia. The tariffs that would’ve come out of your tank and your grocery bill don’t. If that’s a “gift,” it’s one addressed to the American people, and I’d like to see more of them.