The Graham Act's Russia tariffs arrive already waived, and the statute's review clause does not reach the waiver

Section 112 of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 told the President to raise the duty on every good imported from Russia, by as much as 500 percent ad valorem, within 30 days of enactment². Executive Order 14436, signed on October 16 and published in the Federal Register on October 21, does exactly that in section 2, and then in section 4 waives it, along with the 100 percent duties on third countries and most of the Act’s new sanctions¹. The tariff exists on paper and nowhere else. For trade policy the more lasting result is a precedent about the waiver itself: Congress wrote a careful procedure for blocking the President when he ends a Russia measure, and none for when he sets one aside, and the first use of the statute has fallen into that gap².

The instrument: a sanctions statute that writes its own tariffs

The Act is Division A of H.R. 5334, a bill that began in the House on September 11, 2025 as an expansion of the teacher expense deduction to early childhood educators³. That tax provision survives as Division B of the enrolled text, and the sanctions title, described in the bill’s long title as measures “championed by the late Senator Lindsey O. Graham,” was placed ahead of it². The President signed it on September 18, 2026¹.

Title I is built mostly on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Sections 102 through 111 direct blocking sanctions on Russian officials, financial institutions, shadow fleet vessels and the ports that service them, and bar U.S. persons from Russian securities, sovereign debt and energy investment; section 116 lends them IEEPA’s enforcement powers and penalties². Sections 112 and 113 are different in kind. They are tariff provisions, written “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” which raise customs duties by statute rather than by proclamation under a trade law². Both say the new rate applies on top of any antidumping or countervailing duty and any duty under sections 122, 201 or 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 or section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962².

The limit on all of it is section 115. The President “may” waive “any sanctions provision with respect to a foreign person, any restriction with respect to a person, or any duty under this title”². Before doing so he must send Congress a written certification that the waiver is in the national interests of the United States and a report explaining the basis, in unclassified form with an optional classified annex². That is the whole of the condition.

Section 117 sets a much higher bar for ending a measure outright. A termination for Russia requires a certification that Russia has signed a peace agreement accepted by the Government of Ukraine and has ceased hostilities; for third countries, that the conduct has stopped and reliable assurances have been received². A termination then waits 30 calendar days, or 60 if the report arrives between July 10 and September 7, during which either chamber’s leaders may introduce a joint resolution of disapproval that moves on expedited, non-amendable terms². Section 115 carries no such period. The order also lists section 117 among the provisions it waives, without explaining what waiving a termination procedure accomplishes¹.

The mechanism: what the order sets, and what it switches off

Section 2(a) of the order raises the duty on Russian goods “by 500 percent ad valorem”¹. The statute’s wording is “to a rate of up to 500 percent”². The difference would matter for HTS drafting if the duty were ever applied; for now it is moot.

Section 2(b) carries the secondary tariff. Under section 113(c), a country qualifies if it was among the five largest importers by volume of Russian-origin crude oil or natural gas in the 12 months before enactment and knowingly made new purchases on or after the 30th day after enactment, or if it was among the top five countries facilitating Russian oil sanctions evasion over the same period². The order fixes the purchase cutoff at October 18, 2026¹. Crude oil is defined by Harmonized System heading 2709 and natural gas by heading 2711². A gas-only buyer escapes if its Russian gas imports were under 15 percent of Russia’s total gas exports and it has taken significant steps to reduce them². Section 113(h) adds that, notwithstanding the waiver power, nothing in the Act authorizes duties on any country not described in subsection (c)².

Which Graham Act provisions did the order waive?

Section 4 of the order waives:

• every duty under sections 112 and 113 [1];
• the sanctions and restrictions in sections 102(a), 102(e), 103 through 111 and 117 [1];
• section 102(d) as it applies to persons, while stating that nothing in the order affects sanctions under the executive orders issued for the Russia national emergency, as they stood the day before enactment [1].

The waivers remain in effect until the President, or the Secretary of State consulting Treasury and the Trade Representative, determines that further action is appropriate¹. Section 3 assigns the watching to the U.S. Trade Representative, who is to monitor Russian oil and gas purchases and evasion and “promptly inform the President of any circumstance” that might call for further action, “including with respect to the waivers”¹. Section 5 delegates the duty functions in sections 112 and 113 to the Trade Representative and most sanctions functions to State and Treasury¹.

The Iran half of the title is untouched. Section 201 moves the sunset in section 13(b) of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 from 2026 to 2031, and the order does not address it^2,8. The rest of Division A terminates five years after enactment, which by this journal’s count is September 18, 2031².

The effect: who bears the cost of a duty that is not collected

For importers the direct effect is nil. No Graham Act duty is being assessed on Russian goods or on goods from any third country¹. Russian products already carry column 2 rates of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule under the Suspending Normal Trade Relations with Russia and Belarus Act of April 2022, and Russian energy products under chapter 27 have been barred from importation since the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act of the same date^5,6.

The indirect effect lies in contingency. A company sourcing from a large buyer of Russian oil now holds a statute naming a 100 percent duty on all goods from that country, a monitoring order directed at the trade, and a waiver that can be withdrawn without a fixed procedure or notice period in the order^1,2. The reach to third countries is the same aim, by a different tool, as the Commerce Department’s renewed denial orders against Russian airlines, which work through export controls on the foreign firms that service the aircraft. Section 113(g) does impose one brake if the duty is revived: at least 10 days before imposing or adjusting a section 113 duty, the President or the Trade Representative must give six named Senate and House committees, among them Finance and Ways and Means, a written justification and the method used to identify the country². Whether the 180-day redetermination clock in section 113(e), which runs from the “initial imposition” of the duties, has started under a duty that was set and waived at once is a question the order does not answer^1,2.

The order also arrived a week after a separate Treasury action. On October 9 the Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 135, authorizing transactions under its Russia regulations related to the sale, delivery, offloading and importation of diesel fuel of Russian origin, including into the United States, through 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on April 7, 2027; it does not authorize debits to accounts of the Russian central bank, the National Wealth Fund or the Ministry of Finance⁴. Agence France-Presse reported the waiver as following a deal with Russia’s president over diesel exports in exchange for U.S. sanctions relief, and reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had called the deal a “weak decision”⁹. Clyde & Co, in an October 21 client note, pointed out that the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act still prohibits Russian oil products, including diesel, and sets its own terms for lifting that ban⁸. That statute allows termination only after a presidential certification, consultation and a 90-day window for a joint resolution of disapproval⁶. Treasury has not said publicly how the license and the import ban fit together.

The longer view: Congress’s review clauses and the one it left out

Congress has written Russia statutes with review clauses before, and the Graham Act borrows from them. Section 216 of the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of August 2017 requires a report before the President terminates covered Russia sanctions, waives them for a person, or takes a licensing action that significantly alters policy toward Russia, followed by a 30-day review period, extended to 60 days for reports sent between July 10 and September 7⁷. Section 117 of the Graham Act reproduces that calendar almost word for word^2,7. What it drops is the waiver. CAATSA puts a person-specific waiver under the review procedure; the Graham Act applies the procedure to terminations only, while section 115 lets the President waive any duty or sanction on a certification^2,7.

The 2022 trade statutes went further on tariffs. Under the normal trade relations suspension, even a temporary return to column 1 rates for up to a year required consultation with the Ways and Means, Foreign Affairs, Finance and Foreign Relations committees, a certification, and a 90-day wait during which Congress could enact a joint resolution of disapproval⁵. A statutory 500 percent duty can now be set aside on terms lighter than those for a one-year tariff reduction under the 2022 law.

The structure does not leave Congress without tools; it can legislate again, and the certification and report under section 115 must reach it². The order says the President has submitted them¹. Their contents had not been published as of October 22. For the trade, the dates that matter are the ones already fixed: the October 18 purchase cutoff that would define the target countries if the duties return, the April 7, 2027 expiry of the diesel license, and a statute that runs, unless amended, to September 2031^1,2,4.