President Donald Trump has waived the main new Russia-related sanctions, restrictions and import duties created by the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, using the law’s national-interest waiver shortly before key provisions were due to be applied.
The executive order is dated 16 October and was published early on 17 October. It does not repeal the Act. Instead, it puts the specified measures on hold until the president or the secretary of state, working with the relevant cabinet officials, decides that further action is appropriate. Trump said he had sent Congress the required certification that the waiver was in the national interests of the United States, together with a report explaining that determination.
Tariff powers set out, then waived
The order sets out the tariff structure Congress created while waiving its application. It says the duty rate on goods from the Russian Federation would be increased by 500 per cent ad valorem, meaning a charge calculated as a percentage of the imported goods’ value. That rate would have been additional to other applicable duties, fees or charges.
It also describes a 100 per cent ad valorem duty on goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas if those countries knowingly made new purchases of Russian-origin crude or gas on or after 18 October. A separate 100 per cent duty was specified for goods from the five leading facilitators of Russian oil-sanctions evasion. The order waives all duties provided for under those provisions, including duties it sets out itself.
Those figures are proposed tariff rates within the statutory framework, not a measure of the value of Russian trade or a tax directly charged on a country’s energy purchase. The legislation had required action within 30 days of its enactment. The timing of the waiver therefore matters: the new duties will not take effect while it remains in force.
Existing executive-order sanctions remain
The waiver also covers a broad range of the Act’s sanctions and restrictions. It includes the provision dealing with certain foreign persons and a list of further sections covering measures against people and entities. The scope is extensive, but it is not a blanket cancellation of every US restriction connected with Russia.
In particular, the order says it does not affect sanctions or other measures imposed under earlier executive orders addressing the national emergency concerning specified harmful activities of the Russian government. It expressly preserves measures that were in force before the Graham Act became law, including restrictions on people already sanctioned under those orders.
That distinction is central. The order pauses the new statutory tools rather than delisting named people, terminating the underlying national emergency or ending pre-existing executive-order sanctions. The legal position of an individual or organisation already subject to a separate measure is therefore not changed by this order alone.
Monitoring remains in place
Although the duties are waived, the order directs the US trade representative, together with the state, treasury and energy departments, to monitor purchases of Russian-origin crude and natural gas and activity that may facilitate oil-sanctions evasion. Officials are to report regularly to the president and flag circumstances that could indicate a need for further action, including changes to the waivers.
The order gives no fixed expiry date and sets no automatic threshold for restoring the measures. It leaves that judgment to the president or, in the specified circumstances, the secretary of state in consultation with other officials. Its practical effect is therefore a pause with continuing monitoring, not a permanent abandonment of the powers Congress enacted.
The decision has drawn sharply different responses. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the law had been intended to increase pressure on Russia and criticised the decision to block it. A Russian economic envoy welcomed the move. Those reactions underline the diplomatic stakes, but they do not alter the order’s narrower legal effect: the new duties and the waived statutory measures are not being applied for now, while earlier executive-order sanctions remain in place.
