Trump waives Russia sanctions two days before they were due to take effect

President Donald Trump suspended sweeping sanctions and tariffs aimed at Russia on Friday night, using an executive order released by the White House to halt measures he had signed into law in mid-September.

The waiver took effect immediately and came two days before the law’s own implementation deadline. It will remain in place until Trump or other White House officials decide that “further action is appropriate.”

The order waives measures directed at Russia’s energy revenues, including duties on Russian goods and penalties for countries purchasing Russian oil and gas. Trump told Congress that he had certified the waiver was in the national interests of the United States. His order gave no reason for that conclusion.

Trump had signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 in mid-September. The bipartisan law was intended to raise pressure on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022.

It would have imposed tariffs of up to 100% on all goods imported into the US from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or gas. The legislation also targeted countries that knowingly bought Russian oil or gas. China and India, major buyers of Russian oil, had warned against the tariffs before the waiver.

The statute gives the president authority to waive its sanctions by informing Congress that they are not in the national interest. Trump acted days before the measures were due to take effect.

The law bore the name of the late South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a Russia hawk who died in July after returning from Ukraine. Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut drafted it.

The decision followed a week in which the administration’s approach to Russia and Ukraine had increasingly centred on energy prices. A week before the waiver, Trump said the US had agreed to buy diesel from Russia in an effort to bring down global energy prices.

The White House also pressed Ukraine to stop strikes on Russian oil facilities as it sought to ease oil prices. Ukraine briefly accepted that request, then resumed the attacks.

On Friday, as Trump’s waiver was issued, Russia struck more than 15 Ukrainian power generation and transmission sites. The episode marked a new low in Washington’s ties with war-torn Ukraine.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, condemned the decision on Saturday. He said blocking the sanctions “seems wrong to me” and “definitely helps only the Russians.”

Trump has been moving closer to Moscow while publicly criticising Zelensky, including by suggesting that Kyiv needs a new leader. The waiver now leaves the sanctions suspended for an open-ended period, subject to a future White House decision.

Moscow welcomed the order. Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and an investment envoy, called it “a truly historic moment”, saying the penalties could have effectively stopped all economic cooperation between Russia and the US.

Criticism in Congress crossed party lines. Blumenthal said on X: “These waivers have nothing to do with our national security, and everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin.” He accused Trump of turning his back on “the majority of Americans, their representatives in both houses of Congress, and our European allies.”

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called the move an “abject and predictable failure in leadership.” Republican Representative Don Bacon said Trump “is prolonging the war, not ending it.”