US President Trump has signed a bill into law (this week), which willfully relinquishes authority of the Executive branch to the Congress over matters of sanctions against Russia.

Why would our president do such a thing? Did he cave into pressure? My assessment is yes.
While sanctions against certain other countries was lumped in with (likely so) as some sort of internal “Washingtonian” horse-trading – with sanctions against Russia as one prong of the agreement, are the actions merited?

Germany has expressed dissatisfaction with the move, interestingly, since for many months their government has decried any Russian strength… seeming to welcome and invite any US sanctions against Russia.

But now, Germany is publicly stating and acknowledging that US sanctions against Russia are harming the oil importation and energy interests of European countries (including Germany).
Should that not have been realized and spoken out against a little bit earlier perhaps?
Was there a naive belief among Europeans that the US would lift its sanctions? Was there a notion that a US Donald Trump (who B.K. Angela Merkel considered a nightmare scenario of a US president) would be able to single handed so, deter prolonged US government hostility (economic harm) toward Russia?

These are all questions for speculators, psychologists, and political analysts (and me perhaps).
What is clear to most anyone (including me) among the US citizenry, is that now, our president has given up even more Executive branch authority to another branch of our government, with a very high political price in my view.

I for one, find this to be a political loss, regardless of what opinion European nations might express about this very topic.

The US president is in this signing, wasting the flexibility of his US constituency. Can we be as reciprocal since modern day presidencies cannot be given a “blank check”. We must support what is in our interest as we speak out against what is not. This is one of the more serious strategic conflicts that I have seen, when it comes to self-inflicted wounds. A president that calls claims about Russian interference a “witch hunt” certainly should not then go and cede control over to the same Congress that wishes to undermine our critical relations with Russia.