The Russia Sanctions

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

We were sorry to read that President Trump is going to sign “very soon” the bill that would limit his room to maneuver in respect of the Russia sanctions. The prediction he’ll sign soon is from Vice President Pence. It’s not that we’re dovish on Russia. In the newsroom of the Sun, though, the latest Russia sanctions bill is known as the “Presidential Power Abatement Act of 2017.” The better course for Mr. Trump would be to veto the measure and issue a call for consistency on the part of the Congress.

If it wants to start stripping foreign affairs powers from the presidency, that’s one thing. It has the sole grant of power, enumerated in Article One, Section 8, to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.” So what is the reason to restrict the president’s — any president’s — power to ease up on sanctions that are legislated by the Congress? Does Congress not trust this particular president?

The answer may well be that it does not, shocking though that would be from a congress controlled by the president’s own party. It’s just bizarre that Republicans would launch a campaign to gain the presidency on a platform of trying to improve relations with Russia only to start binding the hands of the president it got elected. Congress could take the edge off this insult, though, were it to be consistent. This is a point Mr. Trump could make come September, when he will next get to decide what to do about the Iran deal.

When the deal, struck by Secretary of State Kerry, first went down, both houses of Congress were against it. But they let it slide. Mr. Obama took it to the United Nations Security Council, where Ambassador Power cast America’s vote against its own Congress. The Congress then sat on its hands, while both Presidents Trump and Obama started certifying that Iran is in compliance with the Kerry compact.

That certification, though, deserves to be put up for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. (Exceptional reporting on the point is being done by Omri Ceren of the Israel Project.) So why should Congress grant Mr. Trump, or any president, the power to decide, with the stroke of a pen, whether to leave in place an agreement the Congress — even Senator Schumer — disapproved of in the first place? Mr. Trump told the Wall Street Journal that come September, he expects to decline to vouch for Iran.

The question will then be up to Congress. Does it want to proceed to fully unravel the Iran deal? We’d like to think so, even if it failed to enforce its opinion when the deal was originally struck. Maybe, though, the Congress will flinch and cut the Ayatollahs some slack. Then Mr. Trump can campaign against the slack-cutters in 2018, saying he’s more hard-headed than they are in respect of foreign affairs. He will have stood up for the presidency and started the pendulum of power swinging back to the White House.


The New York Sun

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