Day after waiving sanctions and tariffs related to Russian exports, US President Donald Trump said Saturday he has yet to announce a final decision on the matter as Secretary of State Marco Rubio said offi-cials want more time to eval-uate the situation. Rubio said Saturday that the president will use up to 60 days to assess the economic impact of Russia-related sanctions and tar-iffs that he waived a day earlier. “A lot of you don’t know what my decision is yet, but we’ll figure it out, and you’ll figure it out,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.
The waiver comes just weeks before November’s midterm elections, with Trump under pressure over high energy prices as war with Iran disrupts global oil supplies. Trump signed an executive or-der Friday waiving key sanctions and tariffs under the law known as the Graham Act, which he signed last month at the urging of lawmakers who want to pressure Moscow over its war in Ukraine. The measures, including tar-iffs on Russian goods and penalties on countries buying Russian oil and gas, were due to take ef-fect next week. Friday’s order did not specify how long the waiver would last, but Rubio said Trump opted for a 60-day review.
“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 . Rubio says Trump will use up to 60 days to assess impact of waiving Graham Act sanctions .Trump says Russia will initially supply more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel to the United States
economy and even to the US economy,” Rubio told reporters before boarding a plane for a trip to Uzbekistan. Complicating matters is the Graham Act’s call not only for sanctions on Russia but also for tariffs on goods from countries that import Russian energy supplies. Rubio pointed to In-dia, an important US partner that has diversified its energy supplies but remains heavily dependent on Russian oil. Friday’s executive order drew criticism from Ukrainian Presi-dent Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who warned it would embolden Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin and prolong the war.
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