Congress Passed the Russia Sanctions 86 to 11. Trump Signed Them, Then Waived Them Two Days Before They Bit.
His Treasury secretary says “no sanctions were lifted.” His own executive order says “I am hereby waiving” them. A Putin envoy called it historic.
By Mike Dean,
By Daily Rumble | October 19, 2026
Late Friday night, President Trump signed an executive order waiving nearly all of the new sanctions and tariffs in the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, according to ABC News and RFE/RL. The measures were due to take effect on Sunday, October 18. Congress had cleared the law on September 16 by votes of 86 to 11 in the Senate and 262 to 159 in the House, TIME reported, and Trump signed it in September. By Sunday, Ukraine had hit a Russian oil terminal in St. Petersburg, and Trump went on Truth Social to say Volodymyr Zelensky “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.” The president who signed the toughest Russia sanctions in years used his first real chance to enforce them to switch them off, then blamed the country being invaded.
Huge Announcement Just Dropped at DRN
Look at the order of events. On October 9, Trump announced a diesel deal with Russia. Treasury issued a license letting Russian diesel into the United States through April. On October 11, he announced an “energy ceasefire” between Moscow and Kyiv. On October 16, he waived the Graham Act. On October 18, he turned on Zelensky.
That sequence forces a plain question. If a law passed by lopsided margins in both chambers can be waived before a single tariff is collected, who is actually setting America’s Russia policy?
The law Congress wrote, and the switch it left on the wall
The Graham Act was not a symbolic resolution. According to ABC News, it allowed tariffs of up to 500 percent on Russian goods, including oil and gas, and tariffs of up to 100 percent on the top five buyers of Russian crude and natural gas. It reached foreign banks doing significant business with Russian state banks, barred purchases of Russian sovereign debt and targeted the shadow fleet of tankers Moscow uses to move oil around existing sanctions. Lindsey Graham, who died on July 11, spent much of his last year lobbying for it.
The law also carried a national interest waiver, and that is the door Trump walked through. “I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act,” the order reads, as quoted by TIME. ABC reported that it waives every operative section of the law that deals with Russia, including the provision that kept existing sanctions locked in place. That last piece matters. It clears the way for the president to lift older sanctions on his own later.
ABC called this the second time in two weeks that Trump has waived Russia sanctions. Both times, the beneficiary was the same man in the Kremlin.
Two stories from one administration
The White House has not settled on what it did. Spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a Saturday statement that “President Trump has been clear that he wants to see this brutal war come to an end,” and argued that enforcing the sanctions now would get in the way of peace talks, ABC reported.
Then Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday and insisted “no sanctions were lifted.” He said “the only thing that has been lifted is the diesel embargo,” and described the law as giving the president “60 days to assess the situation.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio made a similar case, saying the administration needs up to 60 days to weigh the economic impact, according to RFE/RL. “These conflicts around the world are starting to crash into each other,” he said.
Put those side by side with the order itself. A pause to study the numbers does not require waiving the clause that keeps existing sanctions in place. And Trump’s own Sunday post gave a different reason entirely. He wrote that he did not want to do anything that would drive Russia away from negotiations, and that “great progress is being made.”
Moscow understood the move just fine. Kirill Dmitriev, a senior Putin envoy who runs Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, called the waiver “a truly historic moment,” RFE/RL reported.
What’s actually happening beneath the surface
Follow the diesel. Prices have hit record highs since the United States went to war with Iran in February, Reuters reported, and the midterms are November 3. The deal with Putin and the waiver that protects it are a bet that cheaper fuel at the pump will outweigh everything else before Election Day.
The experts TIME spoke to doubt the payoff. “The potential economic benefit to American consumers looks rather modest,” said Tatiana Mitrova of Columbia University. Zelensky said the same thing on “Meet the Press”: “This diesel deal is very dangerous. It doesn’t have influence, the real influence on the price in the United States.” Even Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican who defended the president’s authority on the same show, said, “We do not need to buy any of Putin’s oil.”
Meanwhile Kyiv was told to stand down. Trump’s energy ceasefire stopped Ukraine from hitting Russian refineries, but Russia kept striking Ukrainian power stations, leaving hundreds of thousands without electricity, according to Reuters. On October 15 Zelensky told the Financial Times, “We’re done.” Ukraine then hit a Rosneft refinery in Ryazan. Overnight into Sunday it went after the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal, and Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down 1,015 Ukrainian drones. That was the attack that set off Trump’s post.
So one side bombs power plants and gets a waiver. The other side answers in kind and gets accused of never wanting peace.
The backlash inside his own party is real. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, called the waiver “Beyond irresponsible” and asked, “What part of enforcing a law passed 86-11 by the Senate does the President and his advisors not understand?” Sen. John Cornyn of Texas said Graham “would be appalled.” Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andriy Sybiha, wrote that “Indecisiveness sends the wrong signal to the aggressor. It only prolongs the war.”
What to watch
The paperwork Congress is owed. Trump says he has sent lawmakers the certification and report the law requires, TIME reported. Watch whether the Republicans who voted for the law, Tillis and Cornyn among them, make that justification public or demand more. Keep an eye on the 60 days Bessent and Rubio keep citing. Count 60 days from Friday and you land in mid-December, well after the votes are counted.
Zelensky told NBC that the United States siding with Putin would be a “historic mistake and big tragedy.” You do not have to agree with every choice Kyiv makes to see what happened this week. Congress voted, nearly unanimously, to make Russia pay for its war. The president signed that vote into law, and then made sure Russia never got the bill. Ask the senators who wrote it whether they meant it.
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Sources:
ABC News — Trump signs order waiving Graham Act sanctions on Russia, drawing backlash from some lawmakers and Zelenskyy — https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-signs-order-waiving-graham-act-sanctions-russia/story?id=137341529
TIME — What Trump’s Waiver of New Russia Sanctions Means for Ukraine — https://time.com/article/2026/10/17/what-trump-s-waiver-of-new-russia-sanctions-means-for-ukraine/
RFE/RL — Ukrainian Officials Slam Trump’s Waiver Of Russia Sanctions As Rubio Defends Move — https://www.rferl.org/amp/ukraine-russia-waiver-trump-rubio/33878767.html
NBC News — Meet the Press, October 18, 2026 — https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/transcripts/meet-press-october-18-2026-rcna604150
Reuters via Yahoo News — Ukraine hits Russian refinery as Zelenskiy says ‘we’re done’ with Trump’s energy truce — https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/zelenskiy-says-ukraine-resume-strikes-060307306.html
Dunya News — Trump excoriates Zelensky after Ukraine defies US president with major attack on Russia — https://dunyanews.tv/en/World/978460-trump-excoriates-zelensky-after-ukraine-defies-us-president-with-major