The sanctions law Trump signed and suspended in 28 days
The executive order of October 16, 2026 waived the 500% and 100% tariffs and the sanctions two days before the law was to take effect, and the Treasury had already authorized Russian diesel through April 7, 2027. Moscow now speaks of 500,000 tons in October and up to 3.5 million by the end of the year, with the first cargoes expected to reach the United States in November.
The law named for Senator Lindsey Graham, who died in July 2026, was signed by Donald Trump on September 18, 2026 and passed the House and the Senate by wide margins — 86 votes to 11 in the Senate. It had a set date to start biting: October 18, 2026. On the night of Friday, October 16, 2026, two days earlier, the same president signed the executive order waiving its essential provisions. On Monday, October 19, 2026, the first market day after the signing, Brent fell 1.30%, to US$108.43 a barrel, after touching US$110 on Friday, October 16, 2026, the highest level since May 2026.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 provided for a 500% ad valorem tariff on Russian products, a 100% tariff on the products of Russia’s five largest oil and gas importers making new purchases from October 18, 2026, the same rate on the five largest evasion facilitators, and sanctions on officials, banks and the ghost fleet of tankers. Section 4 of the order waived the tariffs in sections 112 and 113 and the sanctions in sections 102(a), 102(e) and 103 through 111, plus 117. What the law did not create remained standing: nothing in the order affects the sanctions from earlier executive orders on the national emergency with respect to Russia’s harmful activities, extended in March 2026.
The license that came a week earlier
On October 9, 2026, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had issued General License 135, which authorizes transactions linked to the sale, delivery, discharge and importation — including into the United States — of Russian-origin diesel until 12:01 a.m. on April 7, 2027, Eastern Daylight Time. The license does not authorize debits to the account of a United States financial institution by Russia’s Central Bank, National Wealth Fund or Ministry of Finance, and it does not unfreeze the rest: Russian assets held in United States banks remain blocked.
Zelensky called the decision a “United States sanctions blackout” and said Russia would repay the diesel with “more terror and perfidy.”
The volumes announced by phone aged in nine days. On October 9, 2026, after a conversation with Vladimir Putin, Trump wrote that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel to the “United States and global market,” plus 500,000 during November, 1 million thereafter and 3 million in short order, depending on the condition of the refineries. The official figure that now stands is larger and differently apportioned: in the interview in which he gave the timetable to Vesti, of the Russian state television, released on October 18, 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak spoke of 500,000 tons in October, 1 million in November and 1 million in December, with up to 3.5 million tons to the world market by the end of the year — should the refineries run at full capacity, as before, almost 10% of the global market, in Aframax ships of about 100,000 tons each.
The date Russian diesel enters the United States also shifted. On October 19, 2026, in Moscow, Novak said that the first cargoes arrive the following month, that the United States Department of Energy had already designated the buying companies and that the temporary license covers transport and insurance through April. The 15-to-20-day timetable he had given before runs from the signing of the contracts, which were still under commercial negotiation when he spoke.
The scale of the batch and the price
The 500,000 tons for October come to about 3.7 million barrels, close to one day of United States diesel consumption, on the order of 3.8 million barrels per day. Diesel at the pump stood at US$6.28 a gallon on October 8, 2026, about 70% above the level of February 28, 2026, when the war against Iran began, and futures fell nearly 5%, to US$4.64 a gallon. Monday’s oil decline came from the waiver, not from relief in the Gulf: Brent came off a high of US$110 on Friday, driven by attacks on commercial vessels, and the volume of Gulf oil shipped fell to about 8.5 million barrels per day in the seven-day average last week, against more than 20 million the week before, according to a note from the consultancy Kpler cited by Reuters. The United States legislative election is on November 3, 2026.
The official justification runs opposite to what the measure appears to be. The certification sent to Congress says the waiver serves the “national interest.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright maintained that the relief pressures Putin to tone down the war: since Russia would have no surplus diesel to export without reducing the intensity of the conflict, the deal would force it to pull back. The claim comes from the government that signed the order, and the timetable it implies appears in no document: there is no expiry date, and the waivers stand until the president or the secretary of state decides otherwise, with Marco Rubio speaking of up to 60 days to measure the measure’s economic impact.
The war the waiver did not stop
On October 18, 2026, Ukraine launched more than a thousand drones against Russia and set oil facilities ablaze, among them an export terminal and a depot in St. Petersburg, with one dead and five injured. On Monday, October 19, 2026, Russia answered with ballistic missiles and jet drones against Ukrainian energy infrastructure, and Zelensky said that Kyiv received no advance warning from its partners. The “energy ceasefire” Trump announced on October 11, 2026 never had any mechanism or detail published.
The diesel Washington went to fetch comes from the refineries Ukraine began attacking. Zelensky told National Broadcasting Company (NBC) News on Sunday, October 18, 2026: “You cannot compare me to Putin. He is the aggressor. He occupied us. He killed adults and children, his soldiers did. He is a terrorist.” Trump replied, in the same report, that Zelensky “does not want to end this war.”
Who was left out and who reacted
On the Russian side, envoy Kirill Dmitriev called the suspension “an important and truly historic moment”. Sergei Lavrov was blunter on October 18, 2026, in Manama: the diesel deal is a bilateral matter for Moscow and Washington, and anyone complaining about it is self-promoting and engaging in “yet another farce.”
Ukraine was left out of the arrangement and away from the table. Zelensky said the United States had decided to “completely ignore” the sanctions, that they could have exerted real pressure, and that the diesel is a gift paid for with future attacks. Trump had already said, on October 10, 2026, that Ukrainians should “get a new leader capable of a deal” and told Kyiv to stop attacking Russian refineries.
The European Union kept its sanctions in place and criticized the deal as “concerning”, with foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas urging Washington to apply the text of the Graham Act; on October 19, 2026, the European Commission confirmed it is preparing a 22nd sanctions package, with no content or date. In the Senate, a dozen senators, six of them Republicans, signed a letter calling for repeal and enforcement of the sanctions — Thom Tillis cited the score by which the law had passed, 86 to 11. India, which bought 1.82 million barrels per day of Russian oil in September 2026, is expected to hold that level.
What the October 16, 2026 order established is that the sanctions law now has a political, not a legal, expiry date: the statute the Senate passed by 86 votes to 11 can be waived two days before taking effect, through a national-interest certification, with nothing in the text repealing it. The first cargo of Russian diesel reaches the United States in November, the license runs through April 7, 2027 and the election explaining the haste is on November 3, 2026. While the three dates run their course, Ukraine counts the drones it launched and Russia counts the substations it knocked out in the same week the diesel was released.