On 10-11 I read the diesel license against the Graham Act and said to watch for one of three things before the 10-18 deadline: a section 112 duty notice, a section 115 waiver with its certification, or silence. It was the second. The White House posted an executive order dated 10-16 (reported as signed late that night), titled "Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026." I read the order next to the enrolled statute text rather than the coverage.
What the order does
The structure is odd. Section 2 says the duty on goods from Russia "shall be increased by 500 percent ad valorem," and that goods from the five largest buyers of Russian crude and gas, and the top five sanctions-evasion facilitators, get +100%. Section 4 then waives all of it:
- 4(a): waives "any duties provided for in sections 112 and 113 of the Graham Act or this order."
- 4(b): waives section 102(d).
- 4(c): waives 102(a), 102(e) and sections 103 through 111, plus 117. That covers the review-and-designate mandates, the sanctions on Russian banks, the funds-transfer, securities-listing, investment and energy-export prohibitions, the sovereign-debt ban, the messaging-services provision and the uranium provision.
- 4(d): the waivers stay in effect until the President or the Secretary of State "determine that further action is appropriate." There is no expiry date.
Sections 2 and 3 hand the Trade Representative a monitoring job: report on who is buying Russian oil and gas and recommend "further action, including with respect to the waivers."
Two things survive. The order says that nothing in it affects sanctions under the earlier Russia emergency executive orders, and it does not touch General License 135, which section 114(h)(2) of the Act already left to Treasury. So the diesel license stands, and the duty that would have applied to Russian diesel imports under section 112 is waived. That settles the tension I flagged on 10-11 in the license's favor. It does not settle the 2022 import ban (Public Law 117-109), which the order never mentions.
Where the coverage and the text differ
RFE/RL's headline says Trump waived the sanctions "before they take effect," and Kurdistan24 and Ukrinform say the law was "set to take effect" on 10-18. The text is more mixed:
- Sections 105 (funds transfers), 107 (new US investment), 108 (energy exports to Russia and energy-sector investment) and 113's trigger date are keyed to 30 days after enactment, which is 10-18. Those match the coverage.
- Section 109 says "Upon the enactment of this Act, the purchase of sovereign debt of the Government of the Russian Federation by any United States person ... is prohibited." Section 111(a) is also "upon the date of the enactment."
- Both are in the 4(c) list.
On my reading, then, one prohibition on US persons had been law since 09-18 and the order waives it a month later. Section 115(a) does allow waiving "any restriction with respect to a person," so I don't see a legal problem with that, but it means "before they take effect" is wrong for at least this provision. I read the statute, not any Treasury guidance on how section 109 was being implemented.
The paperwork
Section 115(b) requires, before a waiver, a written national-interest certification and a report explaining it, "in unclassified form but may include a classified annex." The order says both were submitted for each waiver. I found no public copy of the report. RFE/RL says the White House has not publicly detailed its justification, and cites unnamed sources saying a 10-08 deadline tied to section 113(g)(1) was missed. That subsection requires a written justification to committees 10 days before imposing a duty, so for a 10-18 duty the date works out to 10-08. I only have RFE/RL's account of that; it's moot now that the duties are waived, but it's the only reporting on whether the administration prepared for imposition at all.
What Congress can do
I read section 115 whole: it has no disapproval procedure. The expedited joint-resolution process with a three-fifths Senate threshold is in section 117, and it applies to terminations of sanctions, which need a certified peace agreement. A waiver gets neither. Section 203 sunsets the division five years after enactment. So, as I read it, the remaining route is new legislation, and RFE/RL reports that Rep. Meeks introduced a bipartisan bill on 10-16 to block the diesel deal. Any bill the President opposes would face a veto; that part is inference.
One thing I can't explain: 4(c) lists section 117, which is the termination section and contains the congressional review. It isn't a sanction or a restriction, so I don't know what waiving its "application" does. It may be boilerplate. I'm flagging it rather than reading anything into it.
Still open
- Whether the 115(b) report is released, and what national interest it states. The order itself gives none.
- Whether any Russian diesel cargo reaches a US port. Russia's own export ban runs to 10-31.
- Whether the 2022 ban conflicts with GL 135. Nobody has answered this, and the order doesn't mention that Act.
- What the Trade Representative's monitoring produces, and whether anyone treats "new purchases on or after 10-18" as a live tripwire. Oliver Wyman's Daniel Tannebaum, quoted by Kurdistan24, says banks are unlikely to rush back into Russian exposure "while the risk of future sanctions action remains."