Trump Waives the Graham Act Duties, and Rubio's Next Stop Is Reliance's Jamnagar

Some headlines called it relief for India. The order itself does not say that. President Trump signed an executive order on Friday, 16 October, suspending the sanctions, restrictions and duties in Sections 112 and 113 of the Graham Act, one day before they were due to take effect. Those sections allow duties of up to 500 percent on Russian goods and up to 100 percent on the five largest buyers of Russian crude and gas, according to ABC News and ANI. The waiver is general. It does not single out India.

It is also a suspension, not a repeal. ABC reports it stays in place until the president or the secretary of state decides further action is justified. The White House, through spokesperson Taylor Rogers, said enforcing the duties would get in the way of ongoing U.S. efforts to negotiate a durable peace in Ukraine.

The diesel problem behind the waiver

The peace-talks rationale is the official one. The more concrete pressure is fuel. About a week before the waiver, the Treasury's sanctions office, OFAC, issued a licence allowing Russian diesel into the United States until April, as ABC and ANI report. Without the waiver, the Graham Act would have put tariffs on Russian petroleum products, which would have cut across that licence.

US diesel prices are the context. Benzinga, citing AAA, put the national average at $6.3261 a gallon, against $3.6491 a year earlier. Benzinga describes its own article as partly AI-assisted, so those two numbers are worth checking against AAA directly. Midterm elections are on 3 November. Connecting the waiver to that date is my inference, not something any official has said.

Washington and Kyiv

President Zelenskyy said on X that the decision to undo and block all of it "seems wrong to me." Later, as SBS reported on 18 October, he described the diesel deal as only a first step. In the Senate, Thom Tillis called the move "beyond irresponsible," and John Cornyn said Lindsey Graham would be appalled. Thomas Massie welcomed it (ABC).

India's Ministry of External Affairs said little. Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal declined to discuss the commercial terms of the diesel deal. He said India had already conveyed its concerns about the sanctions legislation to Washington and is firmly committed to energy security for its 1.4 billion people (ANI, Business Today).

Why the itinerary matters more than the waiver

The State Department announced on 13 October that Rubio would travel from 17 to 22 October. The first leg is Samarkand, for the C5+1 meeting with Central Asian states and more than 200 business leaders. The second is Mumbai and Jamnagar. This is his second trip to India this year; the first was the Quad foreign ministers' meeting in May. The announced itinerary has no Delhi stop. The stated aim is to strengthen the U.S.-India strategic partnership, with energy cooperation on the agenda.

Jamnagar is where Reliance Industries runs its refining complex. In March, Reuters reported that Reliance had signed a binding 20-year offtake term sheet with America First Refining for a planned 168,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Brownsville, Texas. That is the company's claim. U.S. Ambassador Sergio Gor told NDTV the visit reflects Reliance's investment in the United States (reported by Benzinga). A Rubio-Ambani meeting is expected, per Bloomberg via the Free Press Journal, but it has not been confirmed and has not happened.

One figure should be handled carefully. America First has said the Texas refinery would offset a $300 billion trade deficit with India. That is a trade claim, not the investment size, and several outlets have garbled it. Reuters' own estimate for construction is around $6.7 billion.

Global Chanakya Assessment

What the evidence supports is narrow. The waiver was driven by Washington's own fuel prices and its peace diplomacy, and India was not its target. The itinerary shows that the U.S. side of this visit is organized around energy and business. A refinery town is on the schedule and the capital is not.

The inference, and it is only that, is that refining capacity is becoming part of India's negotiating position. Jaishankar said on 14 October that a trade deal was near its landing point, and Gor told reporters to stay tuned. If Washington needs diesel supply and Indian refiners can provide it, that gives New Delhi something to trade on. The trade research group GTRI has warned against giving up lasting concessions in return for relief that can be reversed. The waiver can be withdrawn by the same two officials who issued it.

The evidence does not show that India was promised anything, that the waiver was timed to the Rubio trip, or that a deal is agreed. Reliance's term sheet is a company statement. The visit's agenda is as announced, not as observed.

Indicators to Monitor

• The outcome of Rubio's meetings in Mumbai and Jamnagar, including whether the expected Ambani meeting takes place
• Any joint statement or trade announcement from Rubio and Jaishankar before 22 October
• Whether the text of the executive order, once published, names the legal authority used and any report to Congress
• Any statement from the president or secretary of state ending the waiver
• US diesel prices before 3 November
• Congressional action from the senators who criticized the waiver
• Further Treasury licences for Russian petroleum products
• Reliance filings or announcements on the Brownsville offtake