Trump Waived the Russia Sanctions Law Through Section 115, the Exit With No Congressional Review Window

On Friday night, October 16, President Trump signed an executive order waiving the tariff provisions of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, including 100 percent duties that were set to apply from October 18 to countries that knowingly make new purchases of Russian oil or natural gas. The order also waives most of the law's sanctions provisions, and it sets no end date.

Section 4 of the order waives the duties in sections 112 and 113 of the Act. Those cover a 500 percent increase on goods from Russia, 100 percent tariffs on the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas, and 100 percent tariffs on the top five facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion. It also waives most sanctions provisions in sections 102 through 111. Sanctions issued under earlier executive orders stay in force, and the order says so "for the avoidance of doubt."

Two exits with different rules

The Act was signed on September 18, 2026, as Public Law 119-111, and it contains two separate ways to ease its penalties. Section 115, codified at 22 U.S.C. 10815, says the president may waive "any sanctions provision," restriction or duty after submitting two things to Congress: a written certification that the waiver is "in the national interests of the United States," and a report explaining the basis for it. The report must be unclassified, though it may carry a classified annex. The published text of the section contains no review period and no procedure for Congress to reject a waiver.

Section 117, codified at 22 U.S.C. 10817, is built differently. To terminate a sanction or duty aimed at Russia, the president must certify in writing that Russia has signed a peace agreement accepted by Ukraine's government and has stopped military hostilities against it. A 30-day review period then starts, during which the termination cannot take effect. Congress can introduce a joint resolution of disapproval in that window, with committee discharge after 10 days and a Senate vote that needs three-fifths of senators to pass. A waiver under section 115 skips all of it.

The Associated Press reported that the order was posted on the White House website late Friday, two days before the law's own deadline, and that the White House did not immediately explain how the pause serves the national interest. Law Commentary, a legal news site, noted that Congress wrote the waiver into the statute, which lets the administration decline to enforce the penalties without asking lawmakers to amend or repeal anything.

What the law's defenders and detractors say about the discretion

Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to finish the term of her brother, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, and is now running for the seat, had made the law a centerpiece of her campaign. At a debate in Columbia, South Carolina, on Sunday against Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, she said it "gives the president tools that he can use if he so chooses," and she acknowledged that how to use them was the president's purview.

Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat who spoke against the bill during debate, argued the opposite on social media after the order appeared. He said he and others had warned Trump might do this, and called on Congress to "fix this flawed law to stop Trump from capitulating to Putin." His objection is to the structure, not the legality: a sanctions law whose penalties a president can lift with a certification does not bind the president in practice.

The timing sits beside a separate fight. A week earlier Trump announced a deal with Vladimir Putin for Russia to supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons after that. Law Commentary reported that 12 senators, six of them Republicans, wrote to Trump on October 13 asking him to reverse the diesel arrangement and enforce the sanctions Congress authorized. The AP wrote that fuel prices are high mostly because of the Iran war, and that Republicans are defending both chambers on November 3.

What is not known

The reasoning is in the report sent to Congress, and the public order gives none. This article relies on the order text, the statute as published by Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute, and wire and trade-press reporting, so it cannot say what the report argues. I also could not find a count of how often presidents have waived a mandated sanctions package within weeks of signing it. The four weeks between the September 18 signing and the October 16 waiver is the only interval on record here.

Under the text as written, any congressional response would have to come as new legislation, which the president could veto. Until then the Act stays on the books, the tariffs stay switched off, and the only people who can switch them back on are the president or the secretary of state.