The president has broad authority to pursue an appeasement policy with our enemy, but Congress needn’t go along for the ride.
Even by Trump standards, it is just appalling that the administration would consider making business deals with Vladimir Putin’s murderous anti-American regime – even as Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine rages; even as Russia steps up provocations against NATO countries; even as Congress has enacted an anti-Russia sanctions law (that unbelievably gives this president more tariff authority after he’s spent his second term taxing Americans through illegally imposed tariffs); even as the Trump Justice Department has just claimed to have thwarted a Russian intelligence plot to carry out murders on American soil; and even as Putin’s regime is supplying satellite intelligence to enable Iranian aerial attacks on American military bases in the Persian Gulf.
Yet, as the New York Times reports today, that is exactly what Trump is contemplating — according to unidentified sources familiar with the most recent talks the president’s appeasement emissaries (and business partners), Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, held with Putin at the Kremlin . . . before trying, without success, to pressure Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelenskyy to surrender the Donbas region to Putin — a region for which Ukraine has spent years fighting and that Russia has been unable to win on the battlefield despite its war crimes.
I won’t belabor, much, my oft-stated position: Russia is an enemy of the United States; Ukraine’s rugged defense in its existential war against Russia serves vital American interests by the damage it does to Putin’s regime (Russian military casualties are estimated to exceed as astonishing 1.2 million, including well over 300,000 killed); the only position the United States should be taking is to provide reasonably substantial aid to Ukraine as long as Ukraine is willing to fight; and even if Ukraine reached a point where it was no longer willing to fight (which does not appear foreseeable in the near term), the United States should never recognize de jure Russian sovereignty over Ukrainian territory that it has seized by force.
To have a government that sees itself as an impartial mediator between an American enemy and a European democracy allied with NATO and fending off our enemy’s aggression is a disgrace, plain and simple. (And to watch Republicans look the other way now after they blasted President Obama for similarly assuming the impartial arbitrator role between our Israeli ally and its jihadist-backed enemies is quite something.) To have an administration that has tried to squeeze Kyiv into ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia, which Russia hasn’t been able to conquer, is mind boggling.
I would say two things, along the lines of what I argued when Obama sought to impose his Iran as a fait accompli on the United States in defiance of the Constitution’s treaty clause.
First, Congress should follow up the Russia-sanctions legislation (now awaiting Trump’s signature) with a bill that denies any federal funding — not a thin dime — for any government commerce with the Russian government or any of its agents or abettors until such time as Russia has withdrawn its forces from Ukrainian territory.
For myself, I would include Crimea in that, and I’d further demand Russian withdrawal from territories Moscow has seized in Georgia and Moldova. Of course, I’d be surprised if the current Congress takes any action, let alone maximalist action. I am not foolish enough to believe that Putin will withdraw from any seized territory; its obdurate aggression would simply reinforce what should be patent: It is self-sabotage for the United States to engage in commerce with Putin.
Second, members of Congress should make public statements putting Putin on notice that no deal he makes with Trump, if it is not made binding in American law as a treaty or legislation, has the force of American law. He should expect that the United States will withdraw from participation at the first opportunity — whether through a denial of necessary congressional funding, a change of administrations, or other means. To those who will counter that this would weaken Trump’s negotiating position, I’d say, “Yes, that’s the point.” As with Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, if a president makes clear that his negotiating objectives will empower America’s enemies, we’re under no obligation to remain silent for fear of undermining him.
The Constitution vests the president with sweeping foreign-policy power, but it’s far from absolute. Our law’s default position is that pacts cannot be made with foreign powers — even friendly ones — in the absence of strong congressional support (which is why, for example, the treaty clause requires Senate approval from a two-thirds supermajority before a president may ratify). President Trump can’t be stopped from pursuing a policy of appeasement with Putin’s regime, but Congress needn’t go along for the ride.