Trump pauses new Russia sanctions passed by Congress amid deepening row with Ukraine
President signed the legislation championed by late senator Lindsey Graham last month but has waived the restrictions as they were due to come into effect.
Donald Trump has put on hold a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause on the legislation passed by both chambers was in the national interest.
No, it wasn’t in the national interest. It was in Trump’s personal interest, which always has come before national interest.
In an executive order on Friday, the US president said he was waiving many sanctions, restrictions and duties on Russia, in a move that comes as he has been publicly criticising Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, including suggesting that Ukraine needs a new leader.
The move was greeted by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who wrote on social media: “The Trump administration’s suspension of the Graham Act is an important and truly historic moment.”
This is a low point for America. Big Russia attacks little Ukraine, and America sides with Russia. What a disgrace.
No American can be proud of what this president is doing for his own financial gain.
We now will see whether the Republican Party will continue to go along with this dishonor for Ameria.
The president has face widespread criticism after making the announcement, with a dozen US senators – including six Republicans – calling on Trump to rescind his diesel deal.
A letter from the bipartisan group of lawmakers sent on Tuesday urged Trump to execute the sanctions authorities included in the legislation passed last month, called the “Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026”.
Zelenskyy said on Friday the diesel deal would mean cash “will start flowing back into Russia”, as he met European leaders in Brussels.
Trump blindsided Zelenskyy last weekend by announcing that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities. Facing midterm elections next month, Trump has blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for pushing up energy prices that could cost his Republican party its thin majorities in the US Senate and House of Representatives.
Trump blames Ukraine for defending themselves against the aggressor. What nation would trust America, now?
Who could even admire America, now?
I am so ashamed of us. I cannot imagine any patriotic American voting Republican at this stage. It is an absolute humiliation.
Trump is in bed with Putin because:
- Putin has something on him — damning videos of Trump with women — something in that vein, and
- Putin has promised to make Trump richer with Trump Tower Moscow, Trump casinos, and other Trump enrichments. That is why Putin backed Trump in every election.
This is the most blatant in a long list of Trump’s traitorous grifting. The Republican Party has sunk to a new low. It now officially is the Communist Party of Russia.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
We are truly in the dark ages.
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FWIW – I spend most of my social media time on X and even there, the supposed bastion of Trump-Musk far right MAGA type supporters, Trump’s actions are roundly almost universally panned. The anger and denunciation is almost 100%, differing only by nuance. I don’t want to overstate this because what I see depends on who I follow and the algorithm, and although I lean Left-Middle, I do follow some on the Right so I challenge my own beliefs too.
Many far right people with large MAGA followings, like Laura Loomer, completely castigate Trump not only for selling out but for getting America increasingly into wars, which, it’s hard to remember now, was the opposite of what he campaigned on in all three election cycles. We are in WWIII, with two major increasingly overlapping theaters in the Middle East and Europe, though World Wars are never so named while they are happening. The EU countries have been abandoned too, not just Ukraine, and they are all heavily preparing for active wars, with Russian drone shootdowns over NATO countries every few days now. Articles 4 & 5 haven’t been invoked yet, but that’s just because the NATO countries don’t want to escalate things even further. Putin is pushing them to see their limits daily.
Trump’s claim that Ukraine is responsible for most of the rise in oil prices is complete B.S. There are widely circulated charts showing the price of oil was relatively steady for the year before Trump started the war with Iran, then it suddenly spiked dramatically and has never really come down. And that’s just the futures market. The actual spot price is closer to $150/barrel, not the futures cost in December of ~$110/barrel, which experts all agree is way too optimistic. That’s the crack spread and it’s near its widest in history. Our Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the lowest its ever been since the early 1980s, when it was still being filled on a multi-year basis for the first time, as the response to the oil shocks of the 1970s. There is a danger of the salt caverns collapsing from lack of pressure due to oil depletion not being adequately replaced by water. The natural SPR caverns are irreplaceable and would cost billions to replace with manufactured outside oil tanks, which are more vulnerable to attack and would take years to build. The world is suffering from lack of fertilizer from the Middle East too, which will soon lead to famine and higher prices even in the rich countries like the U.S.
No doubt Trump is salivating over personal deals with Russia that will probably never be fulfilled. It’s worth remembering he made a “deal” to basically take most of Ukraine’s >50 mineral reserves too, but that couldn’t be fulfilled as long as the best sources of them were in the war zone. That deal was worth far more than the few days of oil he’s ostensibly getting from Russia now, but which most likely comes from Iran, which is otherwise blockaded, while Russia has lost >50% of its refining capacity in the war and can’t spare diesel (they are importing it from India and probably Iran too, via overland routes by trucks and the Caspian Sea).
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