Two men are deciding the fate of the toughest Russia sanctions package in years — and they want opposite things. Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded for maximum pressure on Moscow. Donald Trump, holding the waiver pen, just shelved most of the Graham Act a day before it was due to bite.
The law would have hit the five biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas — led by China and India — with tariffs up to 100 per cent. On Friday, Mr Trump waived the bulk of it, certifying the move as in America’s national interest, according to reporting on the decision. The move came from the White House even as the president warms toward the Kremlin and questions Ukraine’s leadership.
Zelensky’s argument
The Ukrainian president’s case is economic: renewed fuel sales would hand Moscow fresh billions for its war machine, and he has framed the sanctions as the lever that could force negotiations. Kyiv has watched Washington’s posture shift with growing alarm — the waiver follows months of signals that American support is conditional.
Trump’s calculation
The president’s case is domestic: energy prices are surging, with Brent at $110, and the midterms are weeks away. A 100-per-cent tariff on goods from China and India risked a consumer-price shock — the kind that decides elections. The waiver keeps the threat alive while sparing voters the bill.
Between them stands a familiar Washington pattern — Congress legislates, the president waives — and, as one departing ambassador’s short tenure showed, personnel is policy.
For now the waiver holds, and the monitoring regime — tracking Russian energy buyers, reporting back — keeps the sanctions threat on the shelf rather than in the bin. But on Russia, American policy has rarely been this personal: the fate of a bipartisan sanctions regime now runs through two men, one plea and one pen.
