President Donald Trump signed one of the strongest bipartisan sanctions laws in recent years — and then, within a month, suspended its most consequential provisions. The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 became law on 18 September 2026 after overwhelming votes in both chambers. On 16 October, two days before its key Russia provisions were due to take effect, Trump issued Executive Order 14436, which implemented the Act and, in the same document, waived its new tariffs and most of its Russia-related sanctions on a national-interest certification, with no fixed end date. The result is an unusual legal condition: a sanctions law that remains on the books, whose sharpest tools are suspended, with no date on which the suspension expires.
The Act’s passage was, by any measure, bipartisan. The Senate passed it 86–11 on 7 August 2026. The House agreed to the Senate amendment 262–159 on 16 September 2026, with 58 House Democrats voting for it. Trump signed H.R. 5334 into law on 18 September 2026, as Public Law Number 119-111. Those numbers matter because they show that the law was not a narrow or partisan project. It commanded large majorities in a divided Congress, and it carried the name of a senator from the president’s own party. That breadth of support is part of why the subsequent waiver has drawn attention: a law that Congress passed by wide margins is, for now, largely inoperative where it matters most.
The Act is named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who died in July 2026. In its original form it was co-written with Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut. The naming is more than ceremonial. Graham was one of the Senate’s most prominent advocates of tougher pressure on Moscow, and attaching his name to the Act signalled that it was intended as a legacy measure — the strongest congressional pressure tool on Russia in years. Supporters of the Act present it in exactly those terms: as Congress’s strongest bipartisan pressure tool on Moscow. That framing helps explain the reaction to the waiver, which critics cited in commentary argue guts the law’s operative provisions. That criticism is attributed here, not adopted as fact, because the administration’s position, as reflected in the executive order’s national-interest certification, is that suspension serves United States interests for now.
What the Act actually does is extensive. It codifies much of the post-2021 Russia sanctions framework, turning executive measures into statute, and it makes many sanctions mandatory rather than discretionary. It creates tariff authority of up to 100 percent on the top foreign purchasers of Russian oil and gas, aimed at the countries whose purchases fund Moscow’s war economy. Some summaries also describe a 500 percent tariff provision on United States imports from Russia. That figure should be treated with care — it appears in some summaries of the Act, and this article reports it as such, rather than as a settled single provision — but the direction is clear: the Act was designed to give the United States a powerful economic lever over both Russia and its major energy customers. The Act also extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 through 2031, linking the Russia and Iran sanctions regimes in a single piece of legislation.
The timetable built into the Act is what makes the waiver’s timing significant. Most Russia-related measures had to be implemented within 30 days of enactment — that is, by 18 October 2026. The executive order arrived on 16 October, two days before that deadline. It did not miss the deadline. It met it in form, by implementing the Act, while suspending its substance, by waiving the new tariffs and most Russia-related sanctions and restrictions. The net effect, as of 2 November, is that the Act remains in place but its most consequential measures are suspended and will not take effect for now. There is no expiration date on the waiver in the order, which means the suspension does not lapse on its own. It continues until the administration changes it or Congress acts.
That open-ended quality distinguishes this waiver from a temporary pause. A waiver with a 90-day or 180-day clock would force a fresh decision, and a fresh public justification, when the clock ran out. A waiver with no fixed end date imposes no such discipline. It can continue indefinitely without any further action, and the burden shifts to Congress if lawmakers want to restore the suspended measures. That shift is consequential because Congress is, at present, not in a position to act quickly. The House and Senate are in recess until after the 3 November election and return on 9 November. Any meaningful congressional action on the waiver is unlikely before the lame-duck session, or, failing that, the new Congress in January. The waiver question will therefore be one of the first tests of the lame-duck session’s appetite for confrontation with the White House over sanctions policy.
The lame-duck dynamics deserve explanation, because they shape what Congress can realistically do. In a lame-duck session, outgoing members still vote, but the political incentives are mixed: some members are freed from electoral pressure, while others are focused on the transition to the next Congress. A bipartisan law that passed 86–11 and 262–159 might seem like an easy candidate for restoration, but restoring waived sanctions over a president’s national-interest certification is a different vote from passing the original law. It requires lawmakers to override, in effect, the administration’s judgement about the national interest, and to do so in a session where time is short and competing priorities — funding, defence authorisation and other year-end deadlines — crowd the calendar. None of that means Congress will not act. It means action is not automatic, and the waiver’s open-ended design gives the administration the advantage of inertia.
There is also a factual trap in recent coverage that readers should know about, because it illustrates how easily the timeline can be misreported. A mirror item dated 2 November claimed Trump “signed” the bill “on Friday.” That claim is contradicted by every primary-history source: Congress’s own legislative history, the Paul Weiss client note, the Weil analysis and the Lexology summary all place the signing on 18 September 2026, with the waiver following on 16 October. The mirror item appears to have confused the waiver’s recent prominence with a fresh signing. This article does not use that item, and readers who encounter a claim that the bill was signed in late October or early November should treat it as misdated. The signing was in September. The operative event in October was the waiver.
Trump Russia Sanctions Waiver Executive Order 14436 Explained
The waiver’s substance also needs to be stated precisely. Executive Order 14436 waived the application of the Act’s new tariffs and most Russia-related sanctions and restrictions. It did not repeal the Act. It did not remove the underlying sanctions framework that the Act codified. What it suspended is the new, additional pressure that the Act was designed to add — the tariffs on purchasers of Russian oil and gas, and the bulk of the new Russia-related restrictions. That distinction matters for anyone assessing the practical effect on Moscow. Existing sanctions, including those previously imposed by executive action and now codified, are not the same as the new measures. The waiver leaves the older architecture in place while holding back the newer, sharper tools. Whether that distinction satisfies the Act’s supporters is a political question. As a legal matter, it is the difference between a law that is dead and a law that is dormant.
The administration’s stated rationale, as reflected in the order, is a national-interest certification: suspension serves United States interests for now. The order does not, in the summaries available, spell out a detailed public case for why immediate imposition would harm those interests, and this article does not invent one. Possible considerations that often attend sanctions waivers — ongoing negotiations, alliance management, energy-market stability — are the kinds of factors that administrations weigh, but attributing any specific one to this waiver without a source would be speculation. What can be said is that the certification mechanism itself is part of the Act’s design: Congress included waiver authority, and the president used it. The dispute is therefore not about whether the president had the power to waive, but about whether he should have used it so broadly, so quickly and without an end date.
Supporters of the Act argue that its value lay precisely in its mandatory character. By making sanctions mandatory and by creating tariff authority over Russian oil purchasers, Congress intended to remove discretion — to ensure that pressure on Moscow would not depend on the diplomatic mood of the moment. From that perspective, a waiver issued two days before implementation, covering most of the new measures and carrying no expiry, defeats the purpose of mandatoriness. The administration’s perspective, as reflected in the certification, is that flexibility serves the national interest: that the president needs room to calibrate pressure in line with negotiations and broader strategy. Both arguments are coherent on their own terms. They reflect a perennial tension in sanctions policy between congressional direction and executive discretion, and this waiver is the latest instance of it.
The Russia context gives that tension its stakes. The Act was written against the background of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Western effort to constrain Moscow’s revenue, particularly from energy exports. Tariffs on the top purchasers of Russian oil and gas were designed to reach beyond Russia itself, to the countries whose buying sustains its war economy. Suspending those tariffs therefore affects not only Moscow but also the diplomatic relationships with those purchasers. USN has previously reported on the sanctions architecture around Russian oil, including Treasury action against a shadow-fleet network, reported here [LINK: https://usnbreaking.com/russia-shadow-fleet-sanctions-us-treasury-targets-a7-network-behind-oil-and-illicit-finance/]. That earlier action targeted illicit finance channels. The Graham Act was designed to go further, with statutory tariffs. The waiver holds that further step back, for now.
What should readers watch when Congress returns on 9 November? First, whether any member introduces a measure to narrow, override or condition the waiver, and whether such a measure attracts the bipartisan support the original Act enjoyed. Second, whether the administration offers a fuller public explanation of the national-interest case, or signals a timeline for lifting the waiver. Third, whether the waiver becomes entangled with other lame-duck business — funding, Ukraine assistance, or the broader sanctions debate — in ways that either accelerate or delay action. Fourth, and most importantly, whether the waiver is still in place when the new Congress is sworn in January, at which point the question becomes whether a new Congress reasserts the Act or lets the suspension stand. None of those outcomes can be predicted from the record as of 2 November, and this article makes no prediction about any election result that might shape the new Congress’s composition.
Two cautions close the story. The first is that the waiver has not expired and has not been revoked, on any report found as of 2 November evening. Readers should not assume that the passage of time since 16 October has quietly restored the tariffs. It has not. The suspension has no end date, and only affirmative action changes it. The second caution is about the signing date: the law was signed on 18 September, not in late October or early November, and any account that says otherwise is misdated. With those two points fixed, the picture is clear and, in its own way, remarkable. A president signed a bipartisan sanctions law named for a late senator of his own party, and then, before its teeth could bite, waived those teeth away with no date for their return. Congress, returning on 9 November, will have to decide whether that is the end of the story or the beginning of a fight over who controls American sanctions policy.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from Lexology [LINK: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=00a1bb9d-3fa8-41cc-b1ed-e5b7fc0c0513], Paul Weiss [LINK: https://www.paulweiss.com/media/rp1l0vbh/president_signs_bipartisan_russia_and_iran_sanctions_bill_into_law_key_provisions_of_the_lindsey_o_graham_sanctioning_russia_and_iran_act_of_2026.pdf] and Weil [LINK: https://www.weil.com/-/media/mailings/2026/q4/1026the-lindsey-o-graham-sanctioning-russia-and-iran-act-of-2026key-tariff-and-sanctions-considerati.pdf?rev=5718f603b8e74e4384be75d5202d89af].