Glory to Ukraine!
Glory to the defenders of Ukraine and the entire modern civilization!
- The House of Representatives passed the Graham sanctions bill. What’s in it and what’s not
- Inflation forced the Federal Reserve to raise the key interest rate
- A resolution for the impeachment of Pentagon Chief Hegseth was introduced. In connection with this, Speaker Johnson sent the House of Representatives on a pre-election recess
▶ On Wednesday evening, the House of Representatives voted to pass the Graham sanctions bill. Why this bill is still referred to as the “hellish sanctions” bill in Ukraine remains a mystery. There are no “hellish” sanctions in it. Moreover, this bill does not provide for any new sanctions against Russia at all. That is, there are neither “hellish” nor non-“hellish” new sanctions.
The bill was introduced by the late Republican Senator Graham and Democratic Senator Blumenthal a year and a half ago. Since then, the bill has undergone a large number of changes, and its final version is very different from the initial version. All changes were aimed at softening the bill, and each such change diluted one component or another. Changes were made in the hope that Trump would agree with the next softened version and give permission to the fully controlled Republican leaders in the Senate (and de facto Senate Speaker) Thune and Republican Speakers of the House of Representatives Johnson to include this bill in the agenda.
In the end, Trump agreed to the consideration of the bill only after the death of its author, Senator Graham. A month and a half ago, the bill was passed by the Senate. And now – by the House of Representatives.
The really good provision of this bill is that all sanctions imposed based on President Biden’s executive order 14024 from April 15, 2021, are covered under it for the duration of the bill – for 5 years. That is, neither the current president nor the next president will be able to lift these sanctions for 5 years without the consent of Congress.
Everything else is purely political provisions. They do not imply any real actions. The bill requires sanctions against the entire leadership of the evil empire, starting with Putin. But all of them, starting with Putin, are already under sanctions. Therefore, this provision of the bill has no practical sense.
The bill grants the president the authority to impose tariffs up to 100% on imports from five countries that purchase the largest volumes of Russian oil and gas. The authority is not an obligation. And in this context—“grants the authority”—it’s a nice political expression without real substance.
The main buyers of Russian oil are China and India. The 47th president will not impose new tariffs on imports from China. He has already tried doing so, declaring a trade war on China in March 2025. Within a few months, he was forced to admit defeat in this trade war and lift all tariffs, as China’s retaliatory actions (banning the export of rare earth minerals to the US and the import of soybeans from the US) severely impacted the American high-tech industry and American soybean farmers, who are a very important part of Trump’s and the Republican Party’s voter base.
Similarly, Trump will be extremely cautious in trade relations with India.
Meanwhile, a significant portion of Democrats in the House of Representatives believed that Trump might use this bill not to pressure Russia and those who buy large quantities of its oil, but to “punish” traditional US allies. Russian oil is purchased by Hungary and Slovakia. Hungary also buys Russian gas. They do so with EU permission. Therefore, fears that the 47th president might impose new tariffs on imports from the disliked (or even hated) EU based on this law cannot be considered unfounded. Fearing such developments, 152 out of 210 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted against passing the bill. Seven Republicans also voted against it.
Nevertheless, the bill has been passed. It is reported that Trump may sign it as early as Friday, and it will become law.
This bill has two political components.
The first is political pressure primarily on Chinese and Indian companies purchasing Russian oil. They may fear not American customs tariffs but possible secondary American sanctions. True, it’s hard to imagine the Trump administration imposing such sanctions, but nevertheless, these companies might fear them. If they do, they might consider reducing the volume of Russian oil they buy. However, Trump, having started a war with Iran and suffered a strategic defeat in it, allowed Iran to block the Hormuz and Bab-el-Mandeb Straits. As a result, about 24% of the world’s oil imports are blocked. This pushes oil importers into Putin’s embrace.
The second political component is Trump’s second action (although in this case, it is practically purely political and symbolic) against Russia. The first was the sanctions against “Lukoil” and “Rosneft,” imposed almost a year ago. However, it should be emphasized once again that this bill does not provide for any real new sanctions against Russia.
Meanwhile, in the Senate, there is a bill “Ukraine Support Act,” passed by the House of Representatives through a special procedure bypassing the speaker, which provides for the resumption of American military aid to Ukraine, allocation of an $8 billion loan for Ukraine to purchase American weapons, and real total sanctions against the Russian oil, gas, and financial sectors. This bill is not being put on the agenda by Senate Republican Leader Thune because Trump does not want this bill to become law.
▶ Last Friday, official inflation data for August were published. It stood at 3.4%, the same as in July. The Federal Reserve considers an inflation rate of 2% acceptable. As a result, on Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors unanimously decided to raise the key interest rate by 0.25%.
This is the first interest rate change under the new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh, appointed by Trump several months ago. Trump expected a rate cut from him. He demanded and could not achieve this rate cut from Warsh’s predecessor, Jerome Powell, whom he constantly publicly insulted and against whom the federal prosecutor’s office, at Trump’s direction, tried to file criminal charges.
However, the rate was raised because the inflation level is unacceptable for the Federal Reserve, and cheap money exacerbates inflation. The rise in money cost – the rise in loan costs – does not contribute to increased business activity. However, inflation also does not promote such an increase.
Another factor that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors could not ignore was the rise in yields on American ten-year treasury bonds. For the first time since 2007, it exceeded 5%. This places a heavy burden on the treasury since the cost of servicing the sovereign debt, which due to Trump and his administration’s economic policies has grown to a record $40 trillion, will continue to rise due to the large budget deficit that needs to be financed.
▶ Republican Congressman Tom Massie, who opposes Trump and is ending his work in Congress because he lost the primaries to Trump’s nominee, introduced a resolution to the House of Representatives on Wednesday to impeach Secretary of Defense Hegseth, containing charges on eight counts.
Seven Republicans in the House of Representatives, along with all the Democrats, voted for the resolution to prohibit the President from continuing the war with Iran without Congress’s approval. The resolution was passed.
After this, Speaker Johnson urgently sent the House of Representatives on a recess for more than a month and a half. This was to avoid considering the impeachment of Hegseth and to prevent dissenting Republicans from voting with the Democrats on other issues.
The recess for House members will be conditional, however. Those who have not refused reelection or lost in the party primaries will be working on their reelection campaigns. The election campaign enters a decisive phase.
Meanwhile, the Senate continues its session, which will last until the end of the month. Then the senators who are up for reelection will also focus on their election campaigns.
And Congress will resume work after the elections.
▶ In response to the proposal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for Canada to become an associated member of the EU, Trump stated that if this is an action against the US, he will impose tariffs on imports from the EU or even ban trade with the EU altogether. He will now study whether this action is against the US or not.
The end of the story titled “Fear: Trump in the White House” © (the name of Bob Woodward’s book published in 2018) is 856 days away.
Thank you to everyone who read this. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Take care of each other, help one another. Wishing everyone health.
Ultimately, what happens in the world depends on us. Whether we fight against evil, do good, remain mere spectators, passively wait and believe that someone somewhere will decide for us, or fight against evil and do everything possible for good to prevail.
We must not allow evil to win. The victory of evil would mean the end of the world in which we live. We cannot allow this. Especially now.
Ukrainian friends, I embrace and love you all. Please take care of each other, I ask you sincerely.
Ukraine is and always will be.
And evil will be defeated and punished. This is inevitable.
