The order Donald Trump signed on Friday 16 October, published on the White House’s presidential actions page the same day, carries the title Implementing the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 and does two things at once. It adds 500% to the duty on goods from Russia and 100% to the duties on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas and on the five top facilitators of evasion, then waives all three in the same text.
Section 2 sets the rates at the maximums the act of 18 September allowed. The duty on Russian goods rises by 500% ad valorem, the duty on goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude and gas taken together by 100% if a country knowingly makes new purchases on or after 18 October, and the duty on the top five facilitators of sanctions evasion by 100%.
It adds 500% to the duty on goods from Russia and 100% to the duties on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas and on the five top facilitators of evasion, then waives all three in the same text.
Section 4 waives all of them under section 115 of the act, together with the sanctions and restrictions of section 102 and the provisions of sections 103 to 111 and 117. The waivers hold, in the order’s words, “until such time as the President or the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury and the Trade Representative, as appropriate, determine that further action is appropriate.”
Monitoring survives the waiver: the United States Trade Representative, with the State, Treasury and Energy departments, is to monitor each country’s purchases of Russian crude and gas, report regularly to the president and tell him promptly of any circumstance that might call for further action, “including with respect to the waivers.”
The order names no country and no bank. The act’s 15% line for gas imports, under which a buyer stays out of the duty, does not appear in it, and no date is given on which the waivers lapse. Its last clause assigns the costs of publication to the Department of State.
The duties were to take effect on 18 October, the act’s thirtieth day after enactment, and the White House dated the order two days before, as ABC News noted on Saturday. A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said in a statement that day that the act gives the president additional authorities to pursue a peaceful resolution while talks continue, ABC reported, without saying which talks.
In Congress the reaction cut across the aisle, in ABC’s account. Senator Chuck Schumer called the order the best birthday gift Putin would get this year, Senator Thom Tillis called it beyond irresponsible, Senator John Cornyn said the act’s author would be appalled, and Representative Thomas Massie welcomed the use of a waiver authority Congress had granted. Volodymyr Zelensky said the decision helped only the Russians.
Reuters wrote on Sunday that India and Kazakhstan are among the nations that could have been affected, by the account of experts it cites, and quoted an unnamed Central Asian diplomat as saying officials in the region were wondering to what extent the United States would continue targeting Russian sanctions evasion.
CAW’s count on 14 October put Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan fourth and fifth among the buyers of Russian gas, behind China, Turkey and Belarus, each at about 9 billion cubic metres a year over the twelve months to September. The act counts crude and gas together, and on crude the region is nowhere near India. Kazakhstan’s foreign ministry has said since September that the act’s tariff measures do not reach it, in three sentences that name no volume.
By Monday noon Moscow time no Central Asian government had commented on the waiver on the pages CAW read. 24.kg and Asia-Plus republished the Washington reports, Turkmenistan’s state portal reported Saturday’s cabinet sitting with the Samarkand meeting on its agenda and nothing on the act, and Spot’s account of Rubio’s briefing records no question on it.
The waiver and the visit share a subject. The C5+1 ministers meet on Monday with the duty on Russian oil and gas buyers set aside, and the purchases that put Kazakhstan on the experts’ list are what the order tells the USTR to keep watching.
Rubio landed in Samarkand on Sunday night, Reuters reported, met at the airport by Uzbekistan’s foreign minister Bakhtiyor Saidov. Spot, a Tashkent business site relaying the Uzbek outlet Rasmiy24, adds Saida Mirziyoyeva, the head of the presidential administration, and Sergio Gor, Trump’s special envoy for South and Central Asia, who was already in the country.
On Monday morning he gave a briefing at the Registan. “We have an incredible delegation, almost 300 companies, and the opportunity to sign agreements worth billions of dollars that will not only enrich the countries of the region but will also pay off economically for the United States,” Rubio said, in Spot’s Russian rendering of the briefing.
The State Department counts the delegation differently: more than 200 business executives accompany the secretary, it said, in Reuters’s account. Spot carries the department’s announcement that the C5+1 foreign ministers’ meeting is the visit’s main event, with bilateral talks with Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Turkmen officials beside it.
Rubio told reporters before leaving Washington on Saturday that the timing was set partly by the availability of the delegations. “One of the things that suffers is the strategic business,” Reuters quoted him as saying. “You’re always visiting someplace where there’s a crisis or there’s a problem.”
Turkmenistan’s cabinet heard on Saturday that its foreign minister would attend the Samarkand meeting and meet the secretary of state, the state portal reported, and 24.kg said on Sunday that Kyrgyzstan’s foreign minister would take part.
The waiver follows the diesel licence of 9 October, under which Russian diesel can enter the United States until April. India, Rubio’s next stop, remains the second largest importer of Russian crude after China, Reuters notes, and a US official described the trade deal with it on Friday as pretty much done.
The order had not reached the Federal Register by the weekend: the newest executive order listed there was the diesel order of 5 October, published on 9 October, and the Register’s public inspection desk reopens on Monday at 08:45 Washington time, 15:45 in Moscow. The USTR’s newest release is dated 13 October and concerns Mexico. OFAC’s list of recent actions carries the Russia licence of 9 October and nothing on the act.
The order sets no date of its own: the waivers run until a determination, and the monitoring reports come, in its word, regularly. The next dated point is the secretary’s, the Indian cities of Mumbai and Jamnagar after Samarkand, with the trip due to end on Thursday 22 October.