‘A mistake’: Trump’s Russia sanctions waiver sparks backlash from Republican allies

REPUBLICAN lawmakers blasted US President Donald Trump for waiving new tariffs and sanctions on Russia, prompting the president to defend himself against members of his own party. 

GOP critics said Trump’s decision trampled on the will of Congress, which overwhelmingly passed a sanctions law in September championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, and would aid Moscow’s war effort against Ukraine. 

Trump issued the waiver shortly after cutting a deal with Russia on diesel exports aimed at lowering high fuel prices ahead of the US midterm elections, in which the cost of living is voters’ dominant concern.

“It’s a very good decision. And it’s going to be a decision that’s good for the country and I think good for the world,” the US president told reporters on Saturday (Oct 17).

The decision by Trump threatens to open up a new rift between the White House and its congressional allies with Republicans in grave danger of losing their majorities in the House and Senate in the Nov 3 elections.

Earlier in the day, Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican closely allied to Trump, said the administration should have found other ways to lower fuel costs, such as importing more from Canada or waiving renewable-fuel requirements.

“I wish the president hadn’t done it, I think it was a mistake,” Cruz said on Fox News, referring to Trump’s executive order late on Friday waiving the Graham law. “The current path, unfortunately, just benefits Putin.”

Asked about Cruz’s criticism, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the decision and said Trump needs the 60-day waiver to “sort of study all this and figure out what the right combination is.”

Rubio also claimed the decision was about more than US energy prices, acknowledging the conflicts in Iran that has affected the Strait of Hormuz, between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis and between Russian and Ukraine were putting constraints on global energy supply.

“These conflicts around the world are starting to crash into each other, and they’re having an impact not just on global oil and diesel prices, but on economics,” Rubio told reporters.

“The diesel that Putin is going to sell, they would make it available to the global market one way or the other. The only difference is how much of it the United States was going to get.”

At least eight Republican senators, along with several of their House counterparts, have spoken out against Trump’s diesel deal with Russia or the sanctions waiver. 

“What part of enforcing a law passed 86-11 by the Senate does the President and his advisors not understand?” Senator Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican retiring at the end of his term, wrote on Saturday in a social media post. He said Trump could lower energy prices by addressing Iran rather than “doing a solid for Vladimir Putin.”

A bipartisan group of 12 senators sent Trump a letter earlier this week urging him to rescind his diesel deal with Russia and enforce the Graham law. The Republican signatories included Tillis, Mitch McConnell, John Cornyn, Susan Collins, Alan Armstrong and Lisa Murkowski. 

“Allowing Russian-origin diesel into global markets will offer limited to no relief to Americans,” the senators wrote in the letter, arguing the revenue would help finance Russia’s war in Ukraine and deepen Moscow’s cooperation with China, Iran and North Korea.

Darline Graham, who was appointed to fill her late brother’s seat and is running for a full term, said she is proud of the Bill named after him and plans to speak to Trump when he visits South Carolina next week.

“The president and I share the same goal, which is to end the war and get gas and diesel prices down. The sanctions Bill is one of the tolls he can use to do that. It’s up to him whether or not he choses to do so,” she told local reporters on Saturday.

“Personally, I would keep the pressure on Russia to end the war and get the gas prices down because I don’t trust Putin and I don’t trust Russia.”

While Ukraine has broad support on Capitol Hill, Congress is out of session through the midterm elections, so there is little prospect of immediate action to block Trump’s diesel deal.

His plan to return Russian diesel to US and global markets is expected to have little immediate effect on prices. A sustained resumption of Russian exports by year-end, however, could help shrink global supply deficits, provided Moscow can meet its commitments despite Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries.

Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined with six other senators earlier in the week on a letter opposing the decision, saying Congress “explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine.”

“President Trump’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the US runs directly counter to that law,” Democratic Senators Shaheen, Richard Blumenthal and Ron Wyden, and Republican Senators Collins, Murkowski, Tillis and John Curtis said in a statement on Oct 11.

House lawmakers are also moving against the deal. A group of Democrats and one Republican introduced legislation on Friday to block Russian diesel imports, though passage would be difficult in the Republican-controlled Congress and could require overcoming a Trump veto.

Representative Don Bacon, a retiring Nebraska Republican, co-sponsored the Bill. Representative Brian Fitzpatrick, a Pennsylvania Republican facing re-election in a contested seat, has separately said he would propose legislation barring purchases of Russian oil.

“Many of us won’t fund these things knowing he is propping up a dictator’s invasion and throwing an ally under the bus,” Bacon wrote in a social media post on Saturday. 

French Hill, a Republican lawmaker from Arkansas, said he has requested a classified briefing on the rationale behind the decision, arguing the US should be increasing economic pressure on Russia. 

Democrats have almost unanimously opposed Trump’s overtures to Putin. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a social media post on Saturday that “there’s nothing America First” about the new diesel deal and criticised it for giving the Russian economy “life support” while “Americans need relief from skyrocketing prices.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also criticised the waiver, saying it could mark the beginning of broader sanctions relief for Moscow.

“At the time when the Russians launched such a massive strike against our energy sector, in America, regrettably, a decision was made to completely ignore the Lindsey Graham law,” Zelensky wrote on Saturday in a social media post.

Tensions between Washington and Kyiv have risen since Trump announced the diesel deal last week. Ukrainian defence officials said this week that connection speeds on Starshield, SpaceX’s military-grade satellite service, had been slowed. A US official said on Friday that Trump had not ordered any limits on Ukraine’s access to the satellite technology.

“A US sanctions blackout, easing pressure on the aggressor, financial rewards for Putin – all of this only encourages him to keep attacking,” Zelensky said. BLOOMBERG