Trump expels 60 Russians in response to UK attack; they vow to respond in kind

U.S./Russian relations will not substantively change because 60 Russians will now have to do their work via thee Internet from Moscow, but when nuclear war is a bit of an overreaction, and economic sanctions would cause more problems than they would solve, this is the sort of thing you do to show your disapproval is real. We're going to get about the same number of our diplomats sent back, and I'd guess that within six months' time the numbers on both ends have largely reverted back to normal.

But for now, we're really mad, so Igor, Yuri and Dmitri have to go home:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday ordered the expulsion of 60 Russians from the United States and closed the Russian consulate in Seattle in response to a nerve agent attack earlier this month in Britain, senior U.S. officials said. It was the toughest action that Trump has taken against Russia, and followed what one of the official called a “reckless attempt” by the Russian government on March 4 to attack former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with a military-grade nerve agent. The pair were found slumped on a bench in the southern English city of Salisbury and remain critically ill in hospital. “To the Russian government we say: when you attack our friends, you will face serious consequences,” a senior U.S. administration official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Moscow has denied responsibility for the attack and has retaliated against Britain’s expulsion of 23 Russians by ordering out the same number of Britons. The Kremlin said ahead of the U.S. announcement that it would respond in kind.

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But if all you do is watch CNN, you think Trump is Putin's lackey

The potential for actual impact here is that it keeps the Russians' evil action against the Skripals in the public eye, and makes it more uncomfortable for political leaders of countries throughout the world to make deals with Putin and his regime with the public fully aware that the Russians trade in this sort of mischief. And if you're keeping score, you can add this to Trump's other actions that have made life more difficult for Putin, including the sale of offensive weapons to Ukraine and the growth of U.S. energy exports, which has become a massive economic problem for a Russian regime that relies heavily on oil and natural gas exports to prop itself up. The last thing they needed as the United States ending its own self-impose oil export ban and become the leading player on world markets. But if all you do is watch CNN, you think Trump is Putin's lackey, which I guess just goes to show you can get people to believe anything if you keep repeating it often enough. That's called The Big Lie, and I'll give you three guesses where CNN learned it. Anyway, the expulsion of diplomats is always the sort of thing that gets attention, sends a message and doesn't really change anything in the long term. Sort of like everthing you read about that happens in Washington every day.