Trump Shelved the Russia Sanctions He Signed Last Month. The Explanation Went to Congress, Not to You.

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office, Feb. 10, 2025. Official White House photo by Daniel Torok, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sunday, Oct. 18, was the date Congress wrote into law. It was supposed to be the day 100% tariffs on the five biggest buyers of Russian crude oil and natural gas started to bite. Now it will pass without any of that happening.

Late Friday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order waiving the sanctions, restrictions and duties in the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, the bill he signed into law on Sept. 18. He told Congress the waiver “is in the national interests of the United States.” The order landed two days before the package was due to take effect, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

On paper, the order is tough. Section 2 raises the duty on goods from Russia by 500% and slaps 100% on the top five importers of Russian oil and gas and the top five countries helping Moscow dodge oil sanctions. Section 4 then waives every one of those duties, along with the sanctions and restrictions in 13 separate sections of the act. One line near the bottom keeps the existing Russia sanctions from earlier executive orders in place, so this is not a wholesale lifting of everything Washington has imposed on the Kremlin since 2022. It does, however, cancel the new pressure Congress voted for.

How long does the pause last? The order answers in one sentence:

“The waivers described in subsections (a) through (c) of this section 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.”

No sunset, in other words. “Shockingly, these waivers don’t even have an expiration date,” Mykola Murskyj, advocacy director at the nonprofit Razom for Ukraine, told RFE/RL.

A report exists. The public hasn’t read it.

Congress didn’t hand the White House a blank check. Section 115 of the Graham Act lets the president waive its penalties only after he sends lawmakers a written certification and “a report explaining the basis for the certification,” the order itself recites. Trump says both went to Capitol Hill. The report is supposed to be unclassified, though it may carry a classified annex, according to RFE/RL, which noted that the White House had not publicly laid out its substantive justification for waiving the law’s major provisions.

“The question now is what substantive justification the administration provided Congress for waiving virtually every major sanctions and tariff provision of legislation that passed with bipartisan support,” said Max Meizlish, a former Treasury sanctions official now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a hawkish think tank. Sources familiar with the matter also told RFE/RL the administration missed an Oct. 8 deadline tied to the law’s written-justification requirements for tariffs. The Hoosier Enquirer could not independently confirm that.

The pitch: cheaper diesel

The order itself gives no reason beyond “national interests.” The surrounding facts point to fuel. A week earlier, Trump announced a deal for Russia to supply 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, another 500,000 tons in November and then 1 million tons “immediately thereafter,” RFE/RL reported. Diesel has jumped almost 70% since the Iran war began in February, and the midterms are less than three weeks out, NBC News noted.

Defending the diesel deal earlier this month, White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said “lowering prices for America’s great farmers, truckers, and families remains a top priority,” and that the president was urging both Russia and Ukraine to stop hitting refineries, The Hill reported. That argument lands hard in Indiana. AAA put the state’s average on-road diesel price at a record $6.92 a gallon in late September, right as combines rolled, Hoosier Ag Today reported. The Hoosier Enquirer covered the diesel deal and the congressional pushback last week.

Moscow cheered. Some Republicans didn’t.

Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy to Vladimir Putin, called the suspension “an important and truly historic moment,” CBS News reported. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a “gift” for Putin and complained of “a U.S. sanctions blackout” as Russian strikes hammer Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter.

The sharpest words from the right came from Republicans with no election left to win. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who is retiring, called it “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, who lost his primary to a Trump-backed challenger, wrote, “Lindsey would be appalled.” Retiring Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said the president “is prolonging the war, not ending it,” according to NBC News and The Hill. Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, who co-sponsored the bill named for her late brother and owes her primary win in part to Trump’s endorsement, had not criticized the move, NBC reported. Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a co-author, said the waivers have “everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin.”

Two Hoosier yes votes, and a promise about transparency

Indiana Sens. Todd Young and Jim Banks both voted for the bill when the Senate passed it 86–11 on Aug. 7, according to the Senate roll call, as the Hoosier Enquirer reported last week. Young’s statement that day cuts both ways. He warned that tariffs this large could reach “American manufacturers, farmers, small businesses, and families,” a cost the waiver now spares. He also pledged to keep “advocating for a transparent, disciplined approach to implementing these authorities.”

As of Saturday morning, neither Young nor Banks had said anything about the waiver on their official X accounts, a Hoosier Enquirer review of their posts found.

A president can have good reasons to hold a sanctions hammer in reserve, and Trump may yet show his. The law Congress passed says he has to put those reasons in writing, and he says he has. A document explaining why an 86–11 law is on ice indefinitely shouldn’t be readable only on Capitol Hill while Hoosiers pay for both the fuel and the foreign policy. Young’s word was “transparent.” Releasing the unclassified report would be a good place to start.

Written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers.