President Trump has decided not to impose new sanctions on Russia and tariffs on Russian trading partners under a new law named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, at least for now.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act became law last month and gives Trump the power to add new economic sanctions on Russia and impose 100% tariffs on countries that buy Russian energy, but it also allows the president the ability to waive the sanctions.
“I am hereby waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act. I have submitted to the Congress a certification that the issuance of such a waiver at this time is in the national interests of the United States,” Trump said in an Executive Order he signed on Friday.
The Lindsey Graham Act also extends existing sanctions on Iran, which were unaffected by Trump’s executive order. Trump had asked lawmakers to include Iran sanctions in the bill because he said it’s what “Lindsey would have wanted.”
Trump is facing bipartisan backlash and criticism from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over his decision to waive the sanctions, and in response he said no one knows what his final decision will be. “A lot of you don’t know what my decision is yet, but we’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” he told reporters on Saturday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested that the president wants 60 days to decide whether to impose the sanctions and tariffs. “I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy,” he said.
