United States President Donald Trump has signed an executive order waiving newly-passed Russia sanctions, claiming the move is in the US’s “national interest”. Earlier this month, Trump also announced a deal to bring stocks of Russian diesel into global markets, in a bid to drive down energy prices that have spiked during the US-Israel war on Iran. The US Treasury waived sanctions on Russian diesel sales until April 2027.
Trump’s embrace of Russian energy has angered Ukraine, European partners and many US officials, who say the move rewards Moscow while it continues its four-and-a-half-year war against its neighbour. Ukraine’s President Volodmyr Zelenskyy slammed Trump’s diesel deal as “a gift” to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin that will help fund his war effort. While European countries have also criticised Trump’s embrace of Russian energy, the US president has accused them of “hypocrisy”, as figures show that European Union countries continue to import Russian gas.
In his executive order on Friday, Trump called off numerous planned Russia-related sanctions days before they were due to take effect, including duties on Russian goods and penalties for buying the country’s oil and gas. The now-blocked measures were part of legislation passed in Congress with bipartisan support last month, named after the late US Senator Lindsay Graham, an outspoken critic of Russia. They would have included up to 100 percent tariffs on all goods brought into the US from the five top importers of Russian crude oil or gas, including China and India.
They could also have imposed equal penalties on countries deemed to have knowingly bought oil or gas from Russia 30 days after the law’s implementation, or to be among the top five countries helping Moscow circumvent sanctions on sales of its oil. The waiver will hold until the Trump administration believes “further action is appropriate”, according to the executive order. US Congressman Don Beyer, a Democrat from Virginia, said the sanctions waiver amounts to a “surrender to Putin” that “betrays our Ukrainian partners and defies clear congressional intent”.
Vasily Astrov, an economist at the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, told Al Jazeera that the Russian government will likely be the greatest beneficiary because the easing of sanctions means Russian oil will not have to be further discounted. He estimated that about 60 cents of every extra dollar in the price of a barrel of Russian oil would “end up in state coffers”. Russian official Kirill Dmitriev, an envoy for Putin, hailed the US decision to waive the sanctions as “an important and truly historic moment”.
Other beneficiaries include major importers of Russian oil and gas, such as China and India, who are now less exposed to the risk of secondary US penalties. While Trump hopes the measures will also help bring down oil prices for US consumers before November mid-term elections, experts say that is less certain. Addressing the US’s recent diesel deal with Russia, EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis said it is unlikely to have a significant impact on global prices.
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