The New York Times {SEE HERE} is leading a charge of multiple U.S. media outlets to rage-bait Americans on the issue of President Trump exempting Russia from a new sanctions regime.
Let me start with a positive. Despite the massive amount of years-long gaslighting, lying and narrative engineering by the overwhelming majority of American media and political punditry, the majority of Americans don’t want U.S. sanctions against Russia [37% vs 54%]. Why? Because most Americans have a keen sense of manipulation.
This is one of the reasons why I believe the current effort to create an impeachment narrative against President Trump, again using the Ukraine conflict as the source material, will fail. Yes, the majority of elected politicians support Ukraine and oppose Russia, but the majority of the American people don’t align with the politicians.
More than a week ago we noted the Trump decision to enter a diesel sales agreement with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin was very predictable. Even when President Trump signed HR5334 the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions bill, we noted how it was written to the benefit of President Trump by Lindsey Graham himself. {GO DEEP}
Indeed, with Europe purchasing Russian energy from Vladimir Putin, one of the great ironies within the latest Russian sanctions bill was the requirement and authorization to tariff Europe at a 500% rate for violating the sanctions bill. Yes, that is correct, inside this bill congress authorized President Trump to massively raise tariffs on Europe or anyone else who was purchasing Russian energy products.
As a consequence, if President Trump doesn’t take an action to pause or exempt Russia from these latest sanctions regime, then he will end up hitting almost all the NATO allies with 500% tariffs. However, the media don’t want to draw attention to that aspect as it doesn’t fit their narrative {NYT ARTICLE HERE}.
It did not come as a surprise to me to see President Trump sign an executive order to “waive the application of any sanctions provision” [Executive order here]. Lindsey Graham knew the bottom-line goal of President Trump was to stop the killing, stop the fighting between Ukraine and Russia, and Graham himself created the ability of waivers in the sanction regime specifically so that Trump would have maximum flexibility in providing economic carrots to Russia.
The waiver option is in HR5334 specifically so that President Trump can use it…. And so, he did, DUH! And Lindsey Graham knew he would. And the media are going bananas.
But it’s not the domestic politics that is really annoying here. After all, these are insufferable American politicians and insufferable American media doing the insufferable narrative engineering they are well known for. This is to be expected, and as noted earlier the majority of the American people can see through the games being played.
The frustrating part is watching Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy engage in his now-famous passive-aggressive, too-cute-by-half routine.
ZELENSKYY – “Sanctions relief will continue. I think the diesel deal and the move regarding the Lindsey Graham Act are not the end of it. Unfortunately.
It’s unfortunate because we all had great respect for Lindsey. He devoted his life to America. We had an excellent relationship with him. And shortly before the tragedy, Lindsey was in Ukraine. He always supported us very strongly and pushed for as much assistance to Ukraine as possible.
It’s difficult without him, I’ll be honest. I want to thank both Democrats and Republicans who supported his bill. That was a major victory: this truly bipartisan support. And now, the decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me. And it definitely helps only the Russians. It only fuels their satisfaction and their desire to keep killing people. This certainly does not stop the war.
Is there a threat of strikes and an increase in attacks on the western part of our country? Absolutely. Is Russia preparing for this? I think so.
Because we know that they are placing relay stations on Belarusian territory to use this corridor for drones and intensify the attacks. But that’s not enough for them. They need Lukashenko’s support to deploy other types of weapons on Belarusian territory, including ballistic missiles.
And, of course, deploying ballistic missiles in Belarus would pose a threat primarily to the western part of our country. I’m sure Putin has these intentions. But this would mean directly drawing Belarus into this war. Directly. And, in my view, it would be very dangerous. Certainly for Belarus as well. God willing, they won’t get drawn into this.
The American negotiating track will continue. We’re counting on them to put more pressure on Putin, not on us. Otherwise, it’s simply unfair. As for our meetings with the American side – we expect to meet and are ready to meet in Ukraine or in Europe. If they want to meet in America, let them invite us. We’re ready to negotiate anywhere, and we’re ready for any format: three-way, two-way, four-way, five-plus – it doesn’t matter. What matters is peace. The American side has given us a signal that our meeting with them can happen next week.
And, of course, in my view, Europeans need to have their own infrastructure and their own track for negotiations with Russia. We need to pursue every possible avenue to stop the war. We’ll also speak separately with Türkiye. I plan to talk separately with President Erdoğan about the sea and food security, and with representatives of Middle Eastern countries.
Regarding a meeting with Putin, the United States is working on this. They have a proposal for a trilateral meeting. This meeting can take place in one of the Middle Eastern countries. The United States has always mentioned the UAE or Saudi Arabia. Another possibility is for the meeting to take place in the United States during the G20 summit. But there has been no confirmation yet from Russia or from the United States. The meeting could also take place in one of the European countries. I know that the Europeans are starting contacts about this. We’ll see how things turn out a little later.” (source)
The annoying little man who dresses like a UPS driver seems to think he’ll get an open invitation to the G20.
Dear President Trump. If there is a consideration to use the timing of the G20 for a trilateral discussion with Zelenskyy and Putin directly, please consider holding such an accord AFTER the G20 in Miami.
I would suggest inviting President Putin to spend a few more days in the USA and use either: (a) one of your resorts (Doral after the G20 or other), or use (b) Camp David, and invite Zelenskyy to come specifically for that post G20 summit between yourself, Putin and the insufferable Zelenskyy – without his customary support group from Europe.
Then force the two of them, Putin and Zelenskyy, to hammer out an agreement between themselves. The Russian negotiators and the Ukraine negotiators can hammer it out if forced, directly and only between Russia and Ukraine.
This approach will obviously send the British and EU-NATO alliance teams into fits of apoplexy if they are not participating consultants. However, who cares about their sensibilities? Frame the peace accord around Ukraine and Russia because those are the principals that matter and shut the door to the noise from the Europeans.
