Trump Signs Order Waiving Graham Act Duties and Most of Its Sanctions Provisions
President Donald Trump on October 16 signed an executive order, 'Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026,' invoking the waiver authority in section 115 of the Act to waive all duties under the law and most of its sanctions and restrictions provisions. The White House said the president has submitted to Congress a written certification that the waiver is in the national interests of the United States, together with a report explaining the basis for it.
The Act, named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham and signed by Trump on September 18 after passing the Senate 86-11 and the House 262-159, was largely set to take effect on October 18, thirty days after enactment. The order first sets out the Act's duty rates — a 500 percent duty on Russian goods, and 100 percent duties on goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas that knowingly make new purchases on or after October 18, and from the top five facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion — and directs the US Trade Representative to monitor countries' purchases and evasion activity and report to the president. Section 4 of the order then waives all of those duties, along with most sanctions and restrictions provisions in sections 102 through 111 and section 117 of the Act. The waivers have no fixed end date and remain in effect until the president, or the secretary of state in consultation with the Treasury and the Trade Representative, determines that further action is appropriate. The order specifies that sanctions already in place under earlier executive orders, including the Russia national-emergency framework continued on March 24, 2026, are unaffected.
The move is directly tied to this month's US-Russia diesel arrangement. On October 9, Trump announced that Russia would supply diesel to US and global markets to bring down prices, and the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a general license authorizing transactions involving Russian-origin diesel through April 2027. On Friday, Putin's investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev said the US Treasury had asked the Russian Direct Investment Fund, which he heads, to help solve payment issues for the diesel deal, and noted that the Graham Act would otherwise effectively prohibit investment cooperation between the two countries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and some members of Congress had previously criticized the easing of sanctions on Russian diesel. (GSM, based on the White House executive order text and Reuters reporting)
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: GSM 行政令统一模板（美国总统行政令）
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