Leggi in italianoOn 16 October 2026, President Trump signed an Executive Order implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, enacted on 18 September.
There is an important distinction here that deserves some attention: what Congress decided and what the President has actually done are not quite the same thing.
The Act establishes a far-reaching sanctions framework against Russia, including trade measures that extend well beyond Russian individuals and companies.
Sections 112 and 113 provide for tariffs of up to 500% on goods imported from Russia and up to 100% on goods originating from the five largest importers of Russian oil and natural gas, where those countries knowingly make new purchases on or after 18 October 2026. A similar 100% tariff is envisaged for the five countries most involved in facilitating the evasion of US sanctions on Russian oil.
In other words, Congress has sought to put pressure not only on Russia itself but also on third countries that maintain certain commercial relationships with Moscow.
The logic is familiar to anyone working on secondary sanctions, although the instrument chosen here is somewhat different: tariffs rather than the more conventional financial or transactional restrictions.
But what has Trump actually done?
The Executive Order of 16 October implements the legislation by specifying tariff increases of 500% and 100%. At the same time, however, the President has waived their application, along with a substantial number of other sanctions and restrictions established by the Act.
This is where the legal issue becomes particularly interesting.
Trump is not simply refusing to enforce legislation passed by Congress. Congress itself included a waiver provision in section 115 of the Graham Act, expressly allowing the President to set aside the application of these measures, subject to submitting a written certification and an explanatory report to Congress demonstrating that doing so serves the national interests of the United States.
Trump has now made extensive use of that authority.
The new tariffs will therefore not take effect under the current waiver, and several other sanctions introduced by the Act are likewise suspended. Existing sanctions against Russia remain in place.
One additional detail is worth mentioning. Despite the reference to Iran in its title, the Act is primarily concerned with Russia. Its section 201 also extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 until 2031.
Most interesting about this development is not simply the extraordinary level of the tariffs, although a 500% tariff is certainly remarkable. It is what the episode tells us about the relationship between Congress and the President in US sanctions policy.
Congress has adopted a particularly demanding sanctions regime while simultaneously granting the President extensive authority to waive its application. The President has chosen to exercise that authority on a very broad scale.
We therefore have a statute requiring exceptionally severe sanctions, an Executive Order specifying how those sanctions would be implemented, and, in the very same Executive Order, a presidential decision not to apply them.
The question, then, is not merely how far Congress is prepared to go in imposing economic pressure on Russia and its trading partners. It is also how much control Congress effectively retains over sanctions policy when the President enjoys such broad statutory discretion to suspend the measures it has enacted.
That is the more significant constitutional and institutional issue raised by this Executive Order.
Trump’s decision to suspend the measures introduced by the Graham Act does not affect the existing US sanctions regime against Russia. Section 4(b) of the Executive Order expressly makes this clear, specifying that the waivers do not affect sanctions previously imposed under the national emergency declared in response to the Russian Federation’s harmful activities. What has been suspended, therefore, is an additional layer of economic pressure, not the existing sanctions regime.
The timing of Trump’s decision deserves particular attention. On 9 October, OFAC had already issued a license expressly limited to Russian diesel, authorizing certain commercial transactions until April 2027. Just one week later, Trump suspended the application of a substantial number of the new sanctions introduced by the Graham Act.
It would be inaccurate to suggest that this second decision was specifically tailored to diesel, since its legal scope is considerably broader. Nevertheless, it is difficult to consider the two decisions entirely separately, particularly in light of the administration’s recent efforts to increase the availability of Russian diesel on international markets.
Sources
- Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, Public Law 119-111, 18 September 2026, particularly sections 112, 113, 115 and 201.
- Executive Order, Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, 16 October 2026, particularly sections 2 and 4.