Days before a set of Russia-related trade and financial measures were scheduled to activate under legislation he had signed the previous month — among them tariffs on Russian goods and penalties tied to purchases of its energy exports — Trump granted exemptions that kept those provisions from taking effect.

The waiver was characterised in an executive order released on Friday as serving the national interests of the United States, with Trump's name attached to the directive. Drafted to apply economic pressure on Russia following its 2022 military offensive against Ukraine, the legislation targets that conflict directly.

Relations between Trump and Russia have grown warmer, while his public remarks about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy have at times included the position that Kyiv's leadership ought to change.

Analysts noted that the policy shifts carried a plausible risk of driving energy prices upward at a point when household budgets were already under pressure — all of it unfolding as voters prepared to decide control of both congressional chambers.

Under the bill — championed in Congress by the late South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham — tariffs reaching as high as 100 percent would have taken effect within 30 days against all goods entering the United States from whichever five nations purchased the greatest volumes of Russian crude oil or natural gas, and the same penalty would have applied to any country that knowingly acquired such energy from Russia in the 30-day period following enactment, or that ranked among the top five nations assisting Russia in circumventing existing sanctions.

The waiver, per the order, stays active until Trump or his senior officials conclude that additional steps are warranted. The directive followed his signing of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 in mid-September, and Trump stated in the document that he had forwarded to Congress a certification affirming the waiver's issuance serves the national interests of the United States.

Two of Russia's largest petroleum customers — China and India — voiced reservations about the proposed sanctions legislation targeting Moscow. China's position, conveyed through an official statement, held that extraterritorial legal reach without grounding in international law runs counter to accepted norms, while India's government put Washington on notice that the newly announced tariff measures carry the potential to strain relations between the two countries.

Under the statute, notifying Congress that sanctions run counter to the national interest is all a president needs to do to lift them.

Virginia Democrat Don Beyer issued a written response to the waiver, contending that the administration had deferred to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and arguing in the statement that the decision ran counter to the congressional intent behind legislation passed to hold Russia accountable for its military actions in Ukraine.

Pushback from a number of senators — among them members of the president's own party — followed an arrangement in which the administration agreed to ease export restrictions on Russia in exchange for commitments to supply diesel fuel to international markets, a deal framed around bringing down pump prices globally. Opponents of the agreement contended that its proceeds would flow toward financing Russia's military operations.