Congress Got a 30-Day Hold on Ending Russia Sanctions, None on Waivers
The law's only congressional review and disapproval vote applies to ending sanctions, not waiving them. Here is what the Oct. 16 order switched off, what stays in force and who it spares.
Daniel Fried, a former State Department sanctions coordinator, put a worry in writing on Sept. 16. In a column he wrote the day the House passed the bill, Fried said the risk was less that the administration would use the act "to bash the EU" than that it would "simply issue waivers and not use the tough provisions much at all." Thirty days later, it did.
Coverage calls this a pause. The text reads more like a handover. Congress wrote a 30-day hold and a disapproval vote for ending Russia sanctions, and nothing for waiving them.
On Friday, Oct. 16, President Donald Trump signed the executive order "Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026." The law, signed on Sept. 18, required him by Sunday, Oct. 18 to impose duties of up to 500 percent on Russian goods (Section 112) and up to 100 percent on all goods from the five largest buyers of Russian crude oil or natural gas (Section 113). The order's Section 2 "increases" those duties. Its Section 4 waives them, along with most of the Act's sanctions, in the same document. The stated ground is a certification that the waiver is "in the national interests of the United States." The order names no country and sets no end date. It came 28 days after signing and a week after the diesel license that followed Trump's deal with Vladimir Putin. The White House posted it late Friday and, the Associated Press reported, did not immediately explain the national interest.
What the order switched off, and what it left
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., wrote on X that Trump "waived all of the sanctions on Russia provided for in the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia Act." Reuters said "key" ones, Politico "nearly all," Fox "many." Setting Section 4 of the order against the Act's section numbers settles it.
| Measure | Act section | Status under the Oct. 16 order |
|---|---|---|
| Duties of up to 500% on Russian goods | 112 | Waived |
| Duties of up to 100% on all goods from top-five buyers and top-five evasion hubs | 113 | Waived |
| Review and sanctions on Russian leaders, shadow-fleet vessels and their owners, insurers and ports | 102(a), 102(e) | Waived |
| Sanctions on the central bank, Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank and foreign banks dealing with them | 103 | Waived |
| State-owned entities, funds transfers, exchange listings, U.S. investment, energy exports, sovereign-debt ban, messaging, uranium | 104 to 111 | Waived |
| The termination and congressional-review section itself | 117 | Listed as waived |
| Sanctions already in force under earlier executive orders | 102(d), itself waived in Sec. 4(b) | Left untouched: Sec. 4(b) says nothing in the order affects them |
| Iran Sanctions Act extension to 2031; Sept. 18, 2031 sunset | 201, 203 | Not waived; Title II is outside Section 115 |
| Treasury general licenses issued before the Act | 114(h) | Preserved by the Act |
Beyer limited his claim to the Act, and the order does waive nearly all of its sanctions provisions. Read as "all sanctions on Russia," it would go too far: Section 4(b) says nothing in the order affects sanctions under earlier executive orders. Reuters's "key" undersells it. The penalties section and all of Title II, including the Iran Sanctions Act extension, are untouched.
Two entries deserve a second look. The sovereign-debt ban, Section 109, took effect on the day of signing, according to the law firm Squire Patton Boggs. It is now waived. And Section 117, the termination and review section, is on the list too. The order does not say what that accomplishes.
A review built for the other exit
The Act gives the President two ways to turn sanctions off and treats them very differently. Termination, in Section 117, requires a report to Congress. For Russia itself it must certify that Russia has "signed a peace agreement that is accepted by the free and independent Government of Ukraine" and "ceased all military hostilities"; for other countries and persons, that the conduct has stopped and the President has reliable assurances. Then, for 30 calendar days, "the termination shall not take effect," while Congress can pass a joint resolution of disapproval under expedited rules. In the Senate, both the motion to proceed and passage "shall require the affirmative vote of three-fifths of Members of the Senate."
The second way is the waiver, in Section 115.
"The President may, subject to subsection (b), waive the application of any sanctions provision with respect to a foreign person, any restriction with respect to a person, or any duty under this title."
Section 115(a), Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026
Subsection (b) requires a written certification that the waiver is in the national interests and a report explaining why, in unclassified form, though it may carry a classified annex. The Act provides no waiting period, no vote of approval or disapproval and no expiry date. (The text of the law is public.)
So the same sanctions, legally intact, are switched off through the unlocked door. The order says how long they stay off:
The waivers "shall remain in effect until such time as the President or the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Trade Representative, as appropriate, determine that further action is appropriate."
Section 4(d), executive order of Oct. 16, 2026
That is not an expiry date. It is a dial. Section 5 of the order delegates the Section 115 power to the Secretary of State, so the dial is held by Trump and by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The order also tells the Trade Representative to monitor Russian oil and gas purchases and report anything that "might indicate the need for further action," including on the waivers. It is a duty to inform the President, not Congress.
By contrast, June's 60-day Treasury license for Iranian oil ran through Aug. 21. This waiver carries no date.
Several mechanical questions are open. Section 113(g)(1) requires a written justification to six committees at least 10 days before a duty is imposed or modified. Would lifting the waiver have to wait 10 days, or was the order itself the imposition? Does the 180-day clock for re-ranking the top-five buyers, which runs from "the initial imposition of duties," start? And the report to Congress, which the Act says must be unclassified, had not been made public, according to the Indian news agency IANS.
What Congress can still do
The Act gives Congress no formal check on a waiver. What remains is lawmaking. On Friday, Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., the top Democrat on House Foreign Affairs, introduced the Prohibit Corrupt Russia Oil Deals Act. It nullifies Treasury general licenses, bars new ones and keeps the Development Finance Corporation out of Russian energy. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., is a cosponsor. "Congress must act," Meeks said.
A new bill would face a possible veto, and overriding takes two-thirds of each chamber. The House passed the Act itself 262-159, which is 19 votes short of the 281 that two-thirds of those voting would be. The Senate's 86-11 vote cleared the equivalent bar by 21.
Reps. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Jim Costa, D-Calif., joined by 20 colleagues, wrote on Thursday, Oct. 15 asking that any waiver be "narrow, time-limited, and tied to measurable reductions in support for Russia's war." IANS calls Friday's waivers "open-ended." Twelve senators, including Republicans Susan Collins and Mitch McConnell, wrote on Oct. 13 that the diesel deal "is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies." The midterms are Nov. 3, 17 days away.
The administration's case is strongest on the text: Section 115 says "any duty" and "any sanctions provision," and its only conditions are a certification and a report. Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., the late senator's sister, said Oct. 11 that the law "gives the president tools that he can use if he so chooses." NBC reports U.S. diesel is up "almost 70%" since the Iran war began in February, and Reuters notes analysts said the new measures could have risked raising oil prices further. The order repeals nothing and keeps earlier sanctions.
The critics' case is also on the record, starting with the supermajorities. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the bill's co-author, said the waivers "have nothing to do with our national security, and everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin." Bacon said on X that the President "is prolonging the war, not ending it." The reason given is one phrase, and the waivers are open-ended after House members asked for narrow ones. What the evidence does not show is how much revenue Russia gains.
Who the waiver spares
The Russia bar is nearly invisible because the flow is. The 500 percent duty applied to $3.8 billion of imports a year, down from $29.6 billion in 2021. The 100 percent duty was the one with weight: Squire Patton Boggs says it reaches exports "regardless of whether the goods themselves have any connection to Russian energy." China and India together sell the United States about 109 times what Russia does.
Exporter-reported data, a different basis from the chart, show dependence on that market: India sent 20.8 percent of its goods exports to the United States in 2025, China 11.1 percent and Turkey 6.0 percent.
The buyers' ranking is unofficial. The Act names no country and, as of Oct. 6, no U.S. agency had published a list. One public ranking from the Geopolitical Economist, drawing on CREA and Kpler data for September 2025 through August 2026, puts China first in both crude and gas. India is second in crude and not among the top gas buyers.
China already had cover. The Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), an Indian think tank, says China was protected against U.S. tariff increases until Jan. 10 under a deal reached during Xi Jinping's U.S. visit last month. That date is 85 days away.
India is the exposed one. Kpler ship-tracking, reported by the Press Trust of India (PTI), put its Russian crude at about 1.82 million barrels a day in September, against 2.57 million in July. Kpler's Sumit Ritolia cautioned that the drop "is not simply a response to US tariff pressure." PTI reports External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is "understood to have conveyed" to Rubio last month that Indian refineries are "largely configured to process medium-sour crude" from West Asia and Russia. In February, Washington cut the reciprocal tariff on Indian goods from 25 percent to 18 percent, and IANS says a first trade tranche is close.
GTRI founder Ajay Srivastava put the Indian reading plainly: "For India, the waiver buys time but offers no lasting certainty." He added that "temporary tariff relief is no basis for permanent trade concessions." Rubio is due to meet Jaishankar in Mumbai on Tuesday, Oct. 20.
Turkey draws less attention in the Indian coverage reviewed. On that ranking it appears on both lists, tied for third in crude and second in gas. The Act's gas exception, Section 113(d), does not cover crude. Its exports to the United States were $16.33 billion in 2025, so the stakes are smaller.
A Section 113 duty falls on a country's exports, not on a refinery. A refinery's problem is the supply it can run, which is why configuration matters in Jaishankar's reported argument. Kpler singles out Reliance Industries' Jamnagar complex as the main Indian buyer of Venezuelan heavy grades.
The reasons on offer
The White House has given no reason beyond "national interests," and the order adds nothing. What exists is timing: a week after the diesel deal, two days before the deadline, 18 days before the midterms and amid a public row with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky, who said on Oct. 16 that "gas deals will follow."
GTRI offers three: enforcing against others "while doing so itself would invite accusations of double standards," China's shield, and the risk that targeting India "could derail ongoing bilateral trade negotiations." Reuters points to oil prices; CNN and the BBC link the move to the Zelensky row.
Moscow's reading is on the record. Kirill Dmitriev, Russia's investment envoy, called the waiver "an important and truly historic moment."
Post by @kadmitriev
Rubio, who now shares the waiver authority with the President, is scheduled to visit the Jamnagar refinery complex, which IANS calls the world's largest, on a trip that runs through Oct. 22. The Act gives Congress no vote on how he, or the President, turns the dial.
