President Trump has put Congress’s new Russia sanctions package on hold to protect peace talks, drawing pushback from Republican allies who say economic pressure on Putin is slipping.
Over roughly a week, the Trump administration waived most of the new Russia sanctions and tariffs Congress wrote into law last month and eased separate restrictions on Russian diesel exports. The president certified to Congress that imposing the penalties now would undercut live negotiations to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Fox News reported the White House move left standing the older sanctions architecture against Moscow while parking the newest tools, and it quickly drew public criticism from several Republican senators who helped drive the bill.
Trump framed the choice in plain terms. He said he will not take steps that shove Russia off the bargaining table while talks are underway.
"My decision on Russia is a very simple one. I am in the process of negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine, and don't want to do anything that will drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table."
In his formal certification, he said imposing the Graham Act penalties now "would impede ongoing U.S. efforts to negotiate a durable and comprehensive peace." The door was left open to use the penalties later to incentivize a settlement.
The statute at issue is the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, signed into law in September after strong Senate support. It authorized steep new measures aimed at Russia’s energy trade and financial channels, including presidential waiver authority if the White House certified a national-interest basis for delay.
Just The News reported Trump signed an executive order late Friday pausing the Act’s new sanctions, restrictions, and duties after that certification, while making clear the order does not lift Russia sanctions rooted in other executive authorities.
The New York Post reported the waived package included tariffs of up to 100% on major importers of Russian oil and gas and up to 500% on Russian goods, halted just before they were set to take effect. Trump’s order stated he was "waiving the application of such sanctions, restrictions, and duties provided for in the Graham Act" and that he had certified the waiver "is in the national interests of the United States." The waivers remain until the president or secretary of state decides otherwise.
The Washington Examiner likewise described an indefinite pause on the Graham-championed penalties, justified as serving U.S. national interests even though Trump had signed the same law only a month earlier.
That sequencing landed hard with several GOP senators who expected the new economic tools to be used, not shelved.
Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., who joined Trump in the Oval Office when he signed the legislation and played a leading role in moving it, told Semafor the administration should raise the pressure.
"It is my belief that we need to use economic firepower to help drive Putin to the table."
Britt added that Russia is "at the darkest point that they've been at in this entire war, and now is the time for us to turn up the pressure."
Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., said lawmakers had coordinated the bill’s timing with the White House so the measures would land when they could work.
"This was an act of Congress that we had worked with the White House on."
Capito said they "had timed this to when the president and the White House felt it was a good time to move forward with this, where it could be effective."
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., was sharper on X, calling the decision "beyond irresponsible" and asking what part of enforcing a law the Senate passed 86-11 the president and his advisors did not understand. He also said it was "unconscionable that this administration is capitulating to a Russian dictator who illegally invaded Ukraine and butchers innocent civilians every single day."
Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., described in coverage as a Trump-endorsed figure tied to the legislation’s sponsorship line, said she would "choose to keep the pressure on Russia" because "I don't trust Putin and I don't trust Russia."
Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., went further in reaction to the waiver, saying the president "is prolonging the war, not ending it."
Alongside the Graham Act waiver, the administration eased existing limits so more Russian diesel could reach the market, a step described as aimed at relieving pressure on global fuel prices. Trump has also criticized Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries on the grounds they strain diesel markets. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has described sanctions relief as a "carrot" that could encourage Russia to de-escalate.
Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Fox News Digital the waiver ranks among the administration’s largest moves to begin unwinding the post-2022 U.S. sanctions structure aimed at Russia.
"It's probably the biggest effort that the Trump administration has made to start unwinding the U.S. sanctions architecture that's been in place against Russia since 2022 or even earlier in some cases."
Brands said the immediate financial boost to Moscow from diesel relief is probably "fairly marginal," but warned that unused threats can lose force over time. He argued secondary tariffs on overseas buyers of Russian energy could still "put a fairly significant squeeze on the Russian war economy" if applied, and said Putin’s long-running theory of victory has been that the West, especially the United States, will eventually tire of the costs of confronting Russia and backing Ukraine.
Brands also noted the structural reality Congress itself built in: it is difficult to draft sanctions law that strips a president of waiver room, and presidents usually keep that flexibility for shifting circumstances. The challenge, he said, is that Trump has shown limited appetite for squeezing Russia’s energy export system as hard as the bill’s backers wanted since the push began in early 2025.
None of this erases the sanctions that predated the Graham Act. Those remain. The new tariffs and institutional penalties are paused, not repealed, and the White House can revive them if talks stall or if the president decides added leverage is required.
That is the core tradeoff now in public view. Trump is treating the freshest sanctions package as negotiating capital reserved for a settlement, not as an automatic switch flipped the day the law took effect. His Republican critics want the economic pain applied now, arguing Russia is vulnerable and that withheld pressure signals fatigue.
The administration’s answer is that a deal that ends the war is the point of the exercise, and that driving Moscow away from the table would be a strategic own goal. The senators’ answer is that dictators move when the costs rise, not when the costs are deferred.
Both things can be true in the same week: a president needs room to negotiate, and leverage unused for too long can look like leverage abandoned. The Graham Act tools are still on the books. Whether they stay in reserve or return as active pressure will turn on whether Putin bargains in good faith, or proves the skeptics right.
Peace worth having is peace enforced by strength, and the economic tools Congress built only matter if Moscow believes Washington will use them when talks fail.
