Trump Suspends New Russia Oil Sanctions as Crude Slides From Five-Month High

President Trump signed an executive order late Friday suspending a round of sanctions on Russian oil and waiving proposed tariffs on countries that buy it, just days before the measures were due to take effect. Oil prices fell on the news Monday, pulling back from the five-month high they hit at Friday’s close.

Oil prices fell on Monday after President Trump signed an executive order late Friday suspending a package of Russia-related sanctions and tariffs shortly before they were set to take effect. Brent crude dropped roughly 2% to the $107-$108 a barrel range in early trading, retreating from the five-month high it reached at Friday’s settlement, while U.S. crude slipped by a similar margin to around $97-$99. The order pauses measures tied to a sanctions law Trump signed last month that would have imposed steep tariffs, reportedly up to 100%, on countries importing significant volumes of Russian crude or natural gas, and authorized further penalties against those helping Moscow evade existing sanctions.

What the order does

The White House order grants exemptions from the Russia sanctions that were due to take effect within days, and separately suspends proposed tariffs on countries buying Russian oil. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration would use up to 60 days to assess how the sanctions and tariffs would affect the global economy before deciding how to proceed. Trump framed the move as consistent with efforts to negotiate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying the U.S. wants to avoid steps that could push Moscow away from talks. He also pointed to Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure as a factor behind rising fuel prices, a claim that assigns blame to Kyiv’s campaign rather than to the sanctions regime itself.

Why the market moved

Traders read the waiver as a signal that more Russian crude and refined fuel could reach the market, which pulled prices down from Friday’s close. The retreat was limited, though: supply risks that had pushed prices to a five-month high in the first place have not gone away. Ukraine has continued striking Russian refining and export infrastructure — a wave of drone attacks on Sunday reportedly set fires at an oil terminal and depot in St. Petersburg, following an earlier strike this month on Russia’s Ryazan refinery — while attacks on vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and an unresolved U.S.-Iran standoff continue to threaten Gulf supply. Those crosscurrents left Monday’s selloff well short of erasing the roughly 5% gain crude had posted over the prior week.

A policy reversal with a domestic backdrop

The sanctions law the order partly suspends was signed only last month under pressure from lawmakers seeking to punish Russia over the war; some reports identify it informally by the name of its chief Senate sponsor. Trump’s waiver comes as rising fuel costs have become a politically sensitive issue ahead of the November 3 midterm elections, and some energy analysts have characterized the move as an attempt to keep pump prices in check rather than a durable fix for the supply disruptions in the Gulf. The administration had already been weighing related relief: officials were reported last week to be considering easing sanctions on the tanker fleets used to move Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan crude, though analysts such as those at Energy Aspects have said that step alone would do little to expand the pool of ships willing to carry sanctioned oil.

Part of a bumpy few weeks for Russia-Ukraine energy diplomacy

The waiver follows a period in which Trump had insisted a Russia-Ukraine “energy ceasefire” was holding even as both sides reported new strikes on energy infrastructure, and after the G7 moved to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from strategic reserves to keep fuel markets supplied amid the fighting around Hormuz. The sanctions waiver does not change those underlying dynamics; it only removes, for now, one more source of upward pressure on prices that Washington itself had created.

Sources

• Reuters (via Yahoo Finance, The Globe and Mail), “Oil prices slide as Trump waives Russia sanctions,” Oct. 19, 2026 (executive order terms, price figures, Rubio’s role)
• TradingKey, “Brent Crude Drops Nearly 2% as Trump Waives Some Russia Sanctions,” Oct. 19, 2026 (sanctions law terms, midterm election context)
• FXStreet, “Crude Oil slips from a one-month high on Trump’s Russia waiver,” Oct. 19, 2026 (market pricing context)

Illustrative image. Photo: kishjar? from Moscow, Russia, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons — source