CONTENTIOUS FOREIGN-POLICY ISSUES

Beyond questions of funding, a few central foreign-policy issues are like-ly to feature prominentlike-ly in the relationship between the White House and Capitol Hill. First, the fate of the nuclear deal with Iran (Joint Com-prehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) has been hanging in the balance ever

17 As of early December 2017, the Senate and the House have agreed on budget resolutions that set targets for spending and tax revenues, as well as their respective tax-overhaul bills, which would cut the corporate tax rate by approximately 20 per cent, adding $1.4 trillion over 10 years to the national debt (Morgan and Becker 2017).

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since Trump assumed the presidency. Under the deal, Iran has agreed to significantly reduce its nuclear centrifuges and uranium stockpile, and in exchange for compliance, economic sanctions have been reduced (BBC 2016). Every 90 days the Trump administration is required to certify to Congress that Iran remains in compliance with the agreement (Baker 2017).

As the October 15, 2017 deadline for certification loomed, the President ratcheted up his critical rhetoric concerning the agreement, which is broadly regarded as strategically beneficial for the US and is one of Pres-ident Obama’s key foreign-policy achievements. Ultimately PresPres-ident Trump did not certify that Iran remained in compliance with the deal, and instead decided to pass the buck to Congress, which will now have to decide on the future of US commitment to the agreement. This could entail seeking modification or reinstating sanctions, for example. Given that even President Trump’s top military advisors, including Secretary of Defence James Mattis, are in favour of keeping the agreement in place, it is likely that the Republican-dominated Congress will at most seek to tough-en its provisions. This could tough-entail, inter alia, removing the phasing out of uranium-enrichment restrictions, providing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with greater authority to carry out inspections and restricting Tehran’s ballistic-missile programme. This might give President Trump the chance to agree on accepting the modified, tougher version of the treaty – assuming, somewhat optimistically, that all the other international parties to the agreement would concur (Foroohar 2017; Landler and Sanger 2017a; b).

A second issue that could create contention between the President and Congress is the US response to North Korea’s nuclear posturing. On the one hand, Trump’s inflammatory remarks in response to escalation by the Kim Jong-un regime have invited bipartisan criticism. Not only is Trump’s rhetoric likely to further deteriorate the situation, it is also uncertain whether he can back it up with resolute and credible action given the immense risks involved in any significant military engagement in the region (Herb 2017a). On the other hand, many members of Con-gress have clearly expressed their desire to remain involved in the deci-sion-making process, and have warned that pre-emptive military action would probably require Congressional authorisation. A key issue here is the understanding of the threat that North Korea poses. The President, as the Commander in Chief, is typically assumed to have wide authority to take military action to protect the US from a threat to its national security.

Although Congress has few options to prevent this, it might try to do so by introducing legislation to block the use of force or to bar any funding for military action against North Korea (Herb 2017b).

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Last, but certainly not least, Russia is a serious source of tension be-tween President Trump and Congress. There are two interrelated reasons for this. First, there is a policy disagreement over the best formula for dealing with Russia. Second, there are on-going committee investigations in the House and Senate into Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presiden-tial-election process, including the hacking and release of damaging ma-terials on the Clinton campaign (Uhrmacher and Soffen 2017; Chapter 7).

The committee investigations in Congress remain polarised and politicised, perhaps with the exception of the Senate Intelligence Committee. These divisions will probably have an impact in terms of findings and reporting (see e.g. Carney 2017; Kelley 2017; Kutner 2017).

The question of “election hacking” has, curiously, been missing from President Trump’s policy agenda, despite initial calls to improve cyber security (see White House 2017s). To further understand Russia’s activities and protect the reliability of future elections, members of Congress have called for cooperation from the administration and its agencies over the issue. Congress took a bold legislative step in July in restricting the free-dom of the Trump administration to unilaterally lift sanctions on Russia (also North Korea and Iran) – a bill grudgingly signed by the President (Weaver and Foy 2017).

In May, former head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, was appointed “to serve as Special Counsel to oversee the previously-confirmed FBI inves-tigation of Russian government efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election and related matters”, including the Trump campaign’s potential collusion with Russia and events leading to Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey (US Department of Justice 2017). The results of this inquiry are likely to be critical with regard to the development of the relation-ship between President Trump and the current Republican-dominated Congress. Should the inquiry find intentional and malicious collusion or a severe case of obstruction of justice it is possible – although unlikely – that the Republican party will withdraw its support for the President, or even move to remove him from office through impeachment or by evoking the 25th amendment of the Constitution (see Chapter 7).18 The upcoming mid-term election in November 2018 could also alter the composition

18 There are two pathways for removing a president from office. The first is the impeachment procedure. The House of Representatives has the sole power of impeachment as per the Constitution. The House can charge the President with “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. A resolution to impeach (or its separate articles) requires a simple majority of votes in the House, after which the matter is presented to the Senate to initiate the trial. Conviction by the Senate requires a two-thirds majority (see Halstead 2005).

Only two US presidents have ever been impeached by the House: Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1998. In both cases, senators voting to remove the president from office were in the majority, but did not constitute a two-thirds majority. The second path to removal is through section four of the 25th amendment, which allows the vice-president and the majority of the cabinet, or a body appointed by Congress (e.g. a group of medical experts) to determine that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”. Should the president object, a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate is necessary to remove him or her (Osnos 2017).

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of Congress and affect the prospects of impeachment, especially if the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives (which initiates the procedure).