Trump defends Russia sanctions waiver, says he does not want to drive Moscow from talks

US President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on 18 October that he did not want to “drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.” He also wrote: “Signing that document at this time will do that, and I can sign it later, or any time that I want!”

Trump was referring to sanctions and tariffs under the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which he waived in an executive order on 16 October, days before the measures were due to take effect. The waiver suspends additional economic penalties intended to pressure Moscow over its war against Ukraine, while leaving earlier US sanctions in place. The decision came weeks before the 3 November midterms, in which Republicans are defending slim majorities in both chambers, and analysts said the penalties could have pushed up oil prices for Americans already paying more, largely because of the US-Israeli war with Iran, Reuters reported.

Trump says Zelenskyy could have made a better deal two years ago

A week before the waiver, Trump had announced a deal for Russia to increase diesel supplies to global markets. The Treasury also issued a license, valid until 7 April 2027, permitting certain transactions in Russian-origin diesel.

In the Truth Social post, Trump accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of targeting Russian diesel refineries, saying the strikes were “seriously hurting the world diesel markets, including those in the United States.” Kyiv had paused its refinery strikes for three days at Washington’s request after Trump declared an energy ceasefire on 11 October, which Russia never confirmed, then resumed them. Since then, Russia has struck Ukraine’s energy sector 76 times, Zelenskyy said on 18 October.

Trump wrote that Zelenskyy “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did,” and that he “could have made a better deal two years ago than he can now.”

“His country is in shambles, a large portion of his land is lost, his oceans and seas are gone, and his male population is low, wounded, and/or dead,” Trump added.

He also said Russia was “doing very little, if anything, to help” Iran and that he wanted to keep it that way.

A day earlier, Trump said he had not made a final decision

On 17 October, Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that he had not announced his final decision. “A lot of you don’t know what my decision is yet, but we’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” he said, Reuters reported.

“I think the president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyze what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters before departing for Uzbekistan the same day.

Zelenskyy calls the waiver a pity as Republicans split

Zelenskyy called it a “pity” that Trump had waived sanctions under a law named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who “really believed in Ukraine.” He said he hoped Trump would change his decisions, NBC News reported.

Discussing the diesel deal on NBC’s Meet the Press, Zelenskyy said US oil prices had risen because shipping through the Strait of Hormuz was blocked, not because of Ukraine.

On 17 October, Zelenskyy told journalists that “the decision to undo all of this, to block all of it, seems wrong to me” and that it “definitely helps only the Russians.” His remarks appeared in Ukrainian on his official Telegram channel.

“Sanctions relief will continue. I think the diesel deal and the move regarding the Lindsey Graham Act are not the end of it. Unfortunately,” Zelenskyy said.

On 19 October, Zelenskyy wrote that partners had again given no warning of Russia’s overnight ballistic attack and that blocking missiles for Ukraine’s air defense while Russia gets sanctions eased or postponed amounts to partners denying reality.

Republican Senator James Lankford defended Trump’s decision on NBC’s Meet the Press, saying the president was “choosing the American people first.”

Senator Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister, whom Trump has endorsed for a full term, said at a campaign stop on 17 October that she would “choose to keep the pressure on Russia.”

“I don’t trust Putin and I don’t trust Russia,” Darline Graham said.

She did not directly criticize Trump but said she would not have made that choice, Reuters reported.