Senate threats over Russia sanctions waivers can scare companies off, hurting fuel supplies and driving up costs for everyone<\/p>\n
With Americans struggling\u00a0from soaring energy prices, and businesses across the country trying to keep their heads above water, the Democrats\u2019 apparent priority is to threaten companies that might help ease the pressure.
\nAccording to an October 22 Washington Post report, Senate Democrats are preparing to investigate American companies involved in US President Donald Trump\u2019s decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has reportedly asked businesses to preserve relevant documents ahead of possible congressional investigations, should Democrats regain control of Congress in the November midterms.
\nFor a party that claims to champion working Americans, this is a peculiar way of demonstrating its concern.
\nDiesel is the lifeblood of the American economy. It powers the trucks that carry food to supermarkets, the tractors that harvest crops, the machinery that builds homes and roads, and the locomotives that move freight across the vast country.
\nYet the people who depend on it have too often been treated as an afterthought by the Washington establishment. They live and work in the industrial towns, farming communities and sprawling rural counties that coastal political elites dismiss as flyover country.
\nJust recall Hillary Clinton\u2019s infamous 2016 description of millions of Trump supporters as a \u201cbasket of deplorables\u201d \u2013 a perfect crystallization of the contempt that many ordinary Americans felt was directed at them by the Democrats.
\nA decade later, that perception is unlikely to be helped by the Democratic lawmakers\u2019 threats to investigate businesses for participating in an arrangement intended to bring additional fuel to the market.<\/p>\n
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The timing makes those threats extra\u00a0galling. America is facing an energy crunch aggravated by the Trump administration\u2019s own military campaign against Iran. There is no reason to pretend otherwise. Yes, the president\u2019s decisions helped disrupt global energy markets, and Americans are entitled to demand answers about their consequences.
\nBut recognizing that responsibility does not mean opposing every subsequent attempt to alleviate the damage.
\nTrump\u2019s decision to temporarily ease restrictions on Russian diesel represents an effort to increase available supplies at a time when the market desperately needs relief. It is a pragmatic response to an immediate economic problem, whatever one thinks of the circumstances that created it.
\nAnd now Democrats are determined to make that response costly for the companies willing to participate.
\nCongress has every right to examine whether the administration acted within its legal authority. But threatening private businesses with investigations for engaging in transactions authorized by the federal government is another matter entirely. If those companies comply with the law, why should they have to fear becoming targets of a future congressional majority?
\nThe actual volume of Russian diesel involved is almost beside the point. Moscow initially pledged to release some 300,000 metric tons of diesel, with further shipments promised in the following months \u2013 a modest quantity compared to America\u2019s enormous fuel consumption.<\/p>\n
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But that\u2019s not what the markets will be reacting to. They react to expectations, regulatory certainty and the willingness of businesses to undertake transactions without fearing political retaliation. And now, even a lawful, government-authorized energy deal could expose companies to years of investigations simply because a different party took power.
\nJust imagine the chilling effect.
\nToday, the dispute concerns a relatively small quantity of fuel from one supplier. Tomorrow, the same approach could be applied to other commodities, trading partners or commercial arrangements that fall afoul of Washington\u2019s shifting ideological priorities.
\nIn effect, the Democrats want to hold American energy security hostage to domestic political warfare.
\nAnd for what? The ostensible objective is to keep pressuring Russia.
\nFor years, Moscow has faced sweeping Western sanctions, restrictions on financial transactions and efforts to shut its energy exports out of international markets. None of this has forced Russia to accept any of the West\u2019s demands.
\nRussia has shown it can adapt and endure economic pressure. While not entirely painless, sanctions have consistently failed to produce the political outcome their advocates have called and hoped for.
\nMeanwhile, Moscow has repeatedly signaled that it remains prepared to negotiate to reasonable counterparts that would take Russia\u2019s own security concerns and national interests into account. Whether those positions are acceptable to Washington is a matter for diplomacy \u2013 and refusing to talk altogether is not diplomacy.<\/p>\n
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Trump is willing to acknowledge that Russia remains a major power with which the US must eventually find a workable relationship. It\u2019s the baseline level of recognition of political reality one expects from the leader of a major world power.
\nWhat the Democrats are doing is the international-politics equivalent of pressing their hands to their ears and shouting \u2018La La La\u2019 at the top of their lungs.
\nThe truck driver paying more at the pump, the farmer counting operating costs for the next season and the small-business owner watching expenses climb have little interest in Washington\u2019s political theater. They want affordable fuel, predictable costs and a government that remembers whom it is supposed to serve.
\nThreatening investigations to discourage companies from helping supply the American market is not sending the message the Democrats seem to think it\u2019s sending. It suggests that, to them, political obedience matters more than keeping the country running.
\nAnd ordinary Americans could once again be left paying the bill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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