Trump seems to waive sweeping new Russia sanctions under the Graham Act

President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order that puts large parts of a new Russia sanctions law on hold, according to the White House text of the order and reporting by the BBC and NBC News. The order, dated Oct. 16, 2026, and titled “Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026,” says Trump signed that Graham Act into law on Sept. 18, 2026. Section 1 of the order states that Section 115 of the Graham Act lets the president waive sanctions, restrictions and duties under the Act after submitting to Congress a written certification that the waiver sits in the national interests of the United States and a report that explains the basis for the certification. The order then says: “I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act.”

Section 4 of the order carries the waiver in three blocks. Section 4(a) waives “the application of any duties provided for in sections 112 and 113 of the Graham Act or this order.” Section 4(b) waives the sanctions provision in section 102(d) of the Graham Act as to foreign persons and the restrictions in that same subsection as to persons, and it states that nothing in the order affects sanctions or other measures under any prior executive order issued to address the national emergency that Trump continued on March 24, 2026, with respect to specified harmful foreign activities of the Government of the Russian Federation (91 Fed. Reg. 15515), as those measures stood the day before the Graham Act’s enactment. Section 4(c) waives sanctions and restrictions under sections 102(a), 102(e), 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111 and 117 of the Graham Act. Section 4(d) says 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.”

The same order also writes new duty rates before it waives them. Section 2(a) of the order says the rate of duty on goods from the Russian Federation “shall be increased by 500 percent ad valorem,” subject to exceptions in section 114 of the Graham Act and to the section 4 waivers. Section 2(b) says the rate of duty on goods from the largest five importers of crude oil and natural gas that originated in the Russian Federation “shall be increased by 100 percent ad valorem if the country knowingly makes new purchases of crude oil or natural gas that originated in the Russian Federation on or after October 18, 2026,” again subject to those exceptions and waivers. Section 2(c) sets a matching 100% increase for goods from the top five facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion. Because section 4(a) waives application of the section 112 and 113 duties and of the duties in the order, those rate lines do not take effect while the waiver stands. Anadolu Agency, in its Oct. 17 morning briefing by Merve Aydogan, summarizes the order as implementing the Graham Act “while waiving its tariffs and many sanctions, raising duties on Russian goods by 500% and imposing an additional 100% duty on goods from the five largest importers of Russian oil and gas that make new purchases on or after Oct. 18.”

The BBC, in a piece by Max Matza that carries a Reuters credit and additional reporting by Helen Sullivan, says Trump blocked numerous sanctions on Russia two days before the scheduled start and that he issued the executive order on Friday night saying that suspending some sat in the US “national interest.” The BBC says Congress passed the sanctions and Trump signed them into law in September, and that the law gave Trump broad powers to levy tariffs of up to 100% on imports from the top five purchasers of Russian oil and gas — “most significantly China and India” — and also included sanctions against senior Russian figures, including Putin, Russian financial institutions and Moscow’s so-called “shadow fleet.” The BBC adds that Trump has now waived many of these provisions. The White House order’s own wording uses the plural “national interests”; the BBC paraphrase uses the singular “national interest.”

NBC News, in a story by Kyla Guilfoil first posted Oct. 16, 2026, at 10:45 PM EDT and updated Oct. 17 at 12:10 AM EDT, reports that Trump waived sweeping new sanctions against Russia passed by Congress, arguing in an executive order Friday that the move “is in the national interests of the United States.” NBC says Trump had signed the legislation, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., “just last month,” that the bill took aim at Russia’s largest buyers of oil and gas, and that Congress passed it with strong majorities in both chambers, though many Democrats opposed it because it granted the president new tariff powers. NBC also reports that the legislation requires an unclassified report to Congress before a waiver, and that Trump’s order says the White House has sent that report to Capitol Hill — matching the certification-and-report language in sections 1 and 4 of the order.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle criticized the pause, according to the outlets. The BBC quotes Virginia Democratic Rep. Don Beyer on X: “Trump’s latest surrender to Putin again betrays our Ukrainian partners and defies clear congressional intent of legislation designed to punish Russia for its illegal war of aggression.” NBC News quotes Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., calling the move a “craven, cowardly action” and saying: “These waivers have nothing to do with our national security, and everything to do with sucking up to Vladimir Putin.” NBC also quotes Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., whom it calls a staunch Ukraine ally, saying in a post on X that “the president is prolonging the war, not ending it.” NBC reports that Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., who co-sponsored the bill named for her late brother and whom NBC calls a fierce Trump ally, “has yet to criticize the president for his Russian oil deal or the decision to halt the sanctions.”

The BBC and NBC News both place the waiver against a wider U.S.–Ukraine row over Russian diesel; the BBC alone also ties it to a dispute over U.S. military support. The BBC says relations between Washington and Kyiv frayed last week after the United States struck a controversial deal to import Russian diesel, and that Ukraine then accused the Trump administration of withdrawing key military support. NBC says Trump’s decision to hold the sanctions package came after he announced a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week “to release hundreds of thousands of tons of Russian diesel fuel onto the global market as fuel prices soar,” and that diesel prices have “shot up almost 70% since the war in Iran began in February.” The BBC says Trump temporarily suspended some U.S. sanctions to import Russian diesel in a bid to bring down U.S. energy prices that “have skyrocketed during the Iran war,” and that Zelensky suggested the deal amounted to the United States investing in Russia’s war effort.

Both outlets report friction over Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, and the BBC alone reports a further clash over Starlink. NBC says Trump has expressed frustration with Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure and has blamed them for higher fuel costs. The BBC says Trump claimed that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire” to facilitate Russian diesel exports; that after three days and several fresh Russian attacks, Kyiv resumed strikes on Russian oil refineries; that Trump called those strikes a “disgrace”; and that Zelensky replied, in the BBC’s framing, with the words “only standing up for Ukraine’s interests.” The BBC also reports that Starlink suddenly restricted the speed at which drones could fly while still keeping an internet connection, that Ukraine said the slowdown disrupted battlefield missions and hampered defenses, that Russia launched deadly strikes during the slowdown, and that Zelensky said on Friday that Starlink speeds still awaited a full restoration. The BBC says Trump has denied halting intelligence-sharing and deliberately slowing Ukraine’s Starlink network. This desk did not independently verify the Starlink performance claims.

Anadolu Agency’s Oct. 17 briefing also notes parallel pushback on the diesel deal: U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks introduced the bipartisan Prohibit Corrupt Russia Oil Deals Act, which aims to block the Trump administration from purchasing and importing Russian diesel, and EU leaders expressed regret about the U.S. decision to temporarily lift sanctions on Russian diesel after a two-day European Council meeting in Brussels. Those items sit outside the Graham Act waiver itself; this desk lists them as context from the briefing, not as findings from the White House order.

Reading note: this desk wrote from the White House executive order of Oct. 16, 2026 (primary), the BBC’s Max Matza / Reuters piece, NBC News’s Kyla Guilfoil story and Anadolu Agency’s Oct. 17 morning briefing, not field reporting. The Associated Press story on the same subject returned a Cloudflare challenge page to this desk; this desk did not use it. Existing Russia-related sanctions under prior executive orders remain in place under the order’s own section 4(b) language. Readers should rely on the White House text and official congressional notices, not on this summary, for the legal effect of the waiver.

Correction · Oct 17, 2026, 4:12 AM PT: An earlier version of this story credited the U.S.–Ukraine row over military support, and the clash over Starlink, to both the BBC and NBC News, and listed Starlink context under both outlets in the Evidence status. Only the BBC reports the military-support dispute and the Starlink slowdown; NBC reports the diesel deal and Trump’s frustration with Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil and gas infrastructure. This desk now credits each detail to the outlet that carries it.