WASHINGTON—President Donald J. Trump signed legislation on Wednesday imposing sanctions on Russia and limiting his own authority to lift them, but asserted that the measure included “clearly unconstitutional provisions” and left open the possibility that he might choose not to enforce them as lawmakers intended.
The legislation, which also includes sanctions on Iran and North Korea, represented the first time that Congress had forced Trump to sign a bill over his objections by passing it with bipartisan, veto-proof majorities.
Even before he signed it, the Russian government retaliated by seizing two US diplomatic properties and ordering the United States to reduce its embassy staff members in Russia by 755 people.
The measure reflected deep skepticism among lawmakers in both parties about Trump’s friendly approach to President Vladimir Putin of Russia and an effort to prevent Trump from letting the Kremlin off the hook for its annexation of Crimea, military intervention in Ukraine and its meddling in last year’s US election.
Rather than the rapprochement Trump once envisioned, the US and Russia now seem locked in a spiral of increasing tension. Unlike other bills, Trump did not invite news media photographers to record the event, nor did he say anything about it to reporters. He ignored questions about the legislation at an unrelated event and instead relegated his comments to two written statements, one meant for Congress to describe caveats in his approval of the bill and the other issued to reporters to explain his grudging decision to sign.
As other presidents have in the past, Trump protested that Congress was improperly interfering with his power to set foreign policy, in this case by imposing waiting periods before he can suspend or remove sanctions first imposed by former President Barack Obama while Congress reviews and potentially blocks such a move.
In the statement to Congress, Trump said the bill “included a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions.”
Although he added that “I nevertheless expect to honor” the waiting periods, he did not commit to it. Moreover, he took issue with other provisions, saying only that he “will give careful and respectful consideration to the preferences expressed by Congress.”
“This bill remains seriously flawed—particularly because it encroaches on the executive branch’s authority to negotiate,” Trump said in the separate statement to reporters. “Congress could not even negotiate a health-care bill after seven years of talking. By limiting the executive’s flexibility, this bill makes it harder for the United States to strike good deals for the American people and will drive China, Russia and North Korea much closer together.”
“Yet, despite its problems,” he added, “I am signing this bill for the sake of national unity. It represents the will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States. We hope there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues so that these sanctions will no longer be necessary.”
Like Trump, who has offered no public comment or even a Twitter message about the Russian order to slash the number of US Embassy workers, it appears that Putin has not completely given up on the idea of establishing closer relations.
The Russian government took its retaliatory action before the president signed the bill so that it would be a response to Congress, not to Trump.
After Trump signed the measure on Wednesday, the Russian government reaction was mild.
“De facto, this changes nothing,” said Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press secretary, who was traveling with Putin in the Russian Far East, according to the Interfax news agency. “There is nothing new.”
He added that no new retaliation should be expected. “Countermeasures have already been taken,” he said.
The Russian Foreign Ministry attributed the sanctions to “Russophobic hysteria” and reserved the right to take action if it decided to.
Vasily A. Nebenzya, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations, said the law would do nothing to change Moscow’s policies.
“Those who invented this bill, if they were thinking that they might change our policy, they were wrong,” he told reporters. “As history many times proved, they should have known better that we do not bend, we do not break.”
Dmitry A. Medvedev, the Russian prime minister, declared the “end to hope for the improvement of our relations” and mocked Trump for being forced to sign. “The Trump administration has demonstrated total impotence, handing over executive functions to Congress in the most humiliating way possible,” he wrote on Facebook. He added that “the American establishment has totally outplayed Trump” with the goal “to remove him from power.”
US lawmakers said the new law sent an important signal that Russia would be held to account for its election interference and aggression toward its neighbors. But the lawmakers expressed concern about whether Trump would try to sidestep the measure.
The president’s signing statement “demonstrates that Congress is going to need to keep a sharp eye on this administration’s implementation of this critical law and any actions it takes with respect to Ukraine,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader.
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a prime driver behind the legislation, said, “I remain very concerned that this administration will seek to strike a deal with Moscow that is not in the national security interests of the United States.”
Image credits: Doug Mills/The New York Times