Trump Waives Graham Russia Sanctions Law 28 Days After Signing It

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Oct. 16 waiving the sanctions, restrictions and duties that the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act would have imposed on the top five buyers of Russian oil and gas.

Trump had signed that law on Sept. 18. The waiver came 28 days later.

What the law would have done

According to the executive order, goods from the five biggest importers of Russian oil and gas would have faced tariffs of up to 100 percent. Russian imports would have faced tariffs of up to 500 percent.

The act is named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who championed it. It targeted Russia's energy and defense sectors, Vladimir Putin himself and the shadow fleet of tankers Moscow uses to get around Western sanctions.

The order points to a provision in the act that lets the president waive any sanctions provision if he deems it in the national interest. It did not spell out how this waiver serves that interest. It also did not name the five countries.

The waivers remain in effect until the president or the secretary of state determines that "further action is appropriate."

The diesel deal behind it

Trump has announced an agreement with Putin to allow Russian diesel exports in exchange for easing sanctions. The goal is lower fuel prices, which Trump has made a priority ahead of the November midterms.

In a post, Trump said Russia could deliver another 3 million tons of diesel "within a short period of time," depending on the condition of its refineries. He wrote that between U.S. "TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz" and the Russian energy announcement, diesel prices "will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!" He added: "Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority."

That is the White House's case, and it rests on a power Congress wrote into the law. Nothing in the sources shows a diesel price drop yet.

Novak, speaking on Russian state channel Rossiya-24, said Russian diesel will partially balance global supply and demand. "Russia has the capacity to increase diesel fuel exports," he said.

Moscow's side of the table

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's investment envoy and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), said the U.S. Treasury asked the fund to help solve payment problems tied to the diesel deal. He said the fund would work to ensure payments are efficient and reach their intended recipients.

Speaking at the Russian Energy Week conference in Moscow, Dmitriev described a tangle of penalties. "There are so many layers of sanctions piled on top of one another that everyone has become confused," he said. He added that brainstorming sessions are under way on how to lift them, and that this is what the United States is working on.

Dmitriev also said the Graham Act, which he described as about to take effect, would effectively prohibit investment cooperation between the two countries. He called it a law that "clearly hinders Russian-American projects." He said the diesel deal could be a model for other economic cooperation.

The New York Times reported, citing an unnamed administration official, that Washington is considering an RDIF request for a sanctions waiver. The official pointed to Dmitriev's work with the United States on settling the Ukraine war. That is one anonymous source. No waiver for the fund has been announced.

Zelensky: the diesel deal is a first step

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the deal's loudest critic, spoke the day after the order. "Unfortunately, the lifting of sanctions will continue. I believe the diesel deal is just the first step," he told reporters.

He said he still hopes Trump will do everything in his power to make Putin end the war. "You cannot achieve this by limiting Ukraine's responses to Russia for killing our people," Zelensky said. "And certainly not by lifting sanctions."

Zelensky said the waiver landed the same day Russia hit 15 critical power generation facilities across Ukraine, in one of the largest attacks on the country's energy grid. He said Russia is trying to leave millions of Ukrainians without electricity and heating ahead of winter. Last winter, hundreds of thousands were repeatedly without heat and power in freezing temperatures.

Ukrainian officials said at least two people were killed in Russian air strikes on Saturday, Oct. 17. One died in Kherson, where 22 people were wounded, including two children. Another died in Sumy.

Several Russian officials celebrated the order as a win. The Kremlin and Putin had not responded when the first accounts of the order appeared.

A divided GOP

The move is not clean on the right either. Fox News' Edward Lawrence reported on Oct. 19 that Republicans are split over the sanctions relief. The Fox segment did not name which Republicans stand where.

The law Trump waived carries the name of a Republican senator who died. It passed to pressure Moscow over a war now in its fifth year.

The waiver has no expiration date. It ends only when Trump or the secretary of state decides it should. The administration has not said which five countries it covers, and it has not said whether RDIF will get its own relief. The first answer on whether the diesel deal works as billed will come at the pump, with the midterms days away.