President Trump signed an executive order Friday waiving sanctions on Russia and countries purchasing its oil and gas — restrictions that were set to take effect under legislation he himself signed into law last month. The law, named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham and passed 86-11 in the Senate, would have authorized tariffs of up to 100 percent on goods from nations that continued buying Russian energy or helped Moscow evade sanctions. Trump cited "national interest" without specifying when or whether the restrictions might ever be imposed. The backlash crossed party lines with unusual speed. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina called the waiver "beyond irresponsible" and accused the administration of capitulating to Putin. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas said the late Graham "would be appalled." Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren accused Trump of "thumbing his nose" at Congress and enabling Putin's war against Ukraine. Representative Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, called it a betrayal of Ukraine that disregarded congressional intent. The waiver arrived days after Trump agreed to a deal to purchase Russian diesel, ostensibly to lower fuel prices that have risen amid the US-Israeli war on Iran. Politicians from both parties questioned whether the diesel deal would meaningfully reduce energy costs while simultaneously funneling revenue to Moscow's war machine. Representative Gregory Meeks, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced legislation to block the diesel agreement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy weighed in Saturday, warning that easing financial pressure on Russia only encourages further aggression. "Financial rewards for Putin — all of this only encourages him to keep attacking," Zelenskyy posted on X. The timing is brutal for Kyiv: US support is wavering at the precise moment Russia needs maximum economic pressure to constrain its military operations. The structural problem is timing and leverage. Congress is in recess until after the November 3 midterm elections, leaving no immediate legislative vehicle to challenge the executive order. The 86-11 vote demonstrated overwhelming bipartisan will, but an executive waiver effectively nullifies that will without requiring a new vote. The law gave the president waiver authority — Congress built the escape hatch that Trump just walked through. The pattern is worth naming plainly: a law championed by a now-deceased senator, passed with near-unanimous bipartisan support, signed by the president, and then suspended by the same president via executive order before it could take effect. The legislative process functioned at every stage except the last one, where executive discretion overrode democratic mandate. The question is not whether Congress objects — clearly it does — but whether it has the institutional capacity to enforce its own laws against an executive branch that signed them under political pressure and discarded them at the first opportunity. What remains is a diesel deal of questionable economic benefit, a sanctions regime that exists on paper but not in practice, and a war in Ukraine whose economic battlefield just tilted further toward Moscow. The bipartisan backlash is real but currently performative — tweets and statements without legislative mechanism. The midterms will determine whether that changes.
