Republican Senator Thom Tillis said on Sunday, 12 October 2025 that President Donald Trump 'may be' breaking federal law with his Russian diesel agreement, even as Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso defended the deal as 'leverage' — a sharp intra-party split emerging just one week before Trump faces a statutory deadline on penalising major buyers of Russian oil.

The Republican Divide on Display

The disagreement played out simultaneously on two Sunday television programmes — NBC's Meet the Press and CBS' Face the Nation — underscoring how publicly the rift has broken. On NBC, anchor Kristen Welker asked Tillis directly whether Trump was violating the 2022 law banning Russian oil imports. 'I believe that he may be,' Tillis replied. 'I do believe there's a legitimate case for saying the president's not following the law,' the North Carolina Republican added.

Tillis further argued that an 86-vote Senate majority for the sanctions bill named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham reflected a near-universal legislative position. 'That's a universal position of the US Senate. And the president's actions and his comments over the last 24 hours are the exact opposite of the intent of that bill,' he said, adding that the diesel agreement was 'tarnishing Lindsey Graham's efforts to try and get the sanctions bill through.'

Seven Senators Call for Immediate Reversal

Later the same day, Tillis joined six other senators in a joint statement — led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen — declaring that Trump's decision 'runs directly counter to that law' and demanding that 'The Administration must immediately reverse course.' The signatories included Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John Curtis, and Democrats Richard Blumenthal and Ron Wyden, reflecting rare bipartisan pushback.

Barrasso: The Deal Is 'Leverage', Not a Violation

On CBS, host Margaret Brennan challenged Senate Republican Whip Barrasso — who had voted for the Graham law — asking whether Trump's move made 'a mockery' of the legislation. Barrasso rejected the framing. 'We passed that law to give the president the flexibility and the firepower to use another tool against Vladimir Putin,' he said. 'This is just another point of leverage for the president to use against Putin in an effort to get a long-term solution,' he added.

Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that any lawmaker claiming the Graham law bars the diesel purchases is 'wrong', pointing to a statutory carve-out: Section 113 of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, signed on 18 September 2026, counts only purchases of crude oil and natural gas — not refined products such as diesel — when determining which countries face tariffs. The law also allows the President to waive any duty by certifying to Congress that it is in the US national interest.

The October 18 Deadline and India's Exposure

The political and legal debate carries direct consequences beyond Washington. Under Section 113 of the Graham Act, the President must, within 30 days of the law's signing — by 18 October 2026 — impose duties of 'up to 100 percent' on goods from countries that ranked among the five largest importers of Russian crude oil or natural gas and continue purchasing. Neither senator named India on air, but New Delhi is widely understood to be among the largest buyers of Russian energy, placing it squarely within the law's scope. Whether the diesel carve-out and presidential waiver authority shields India from tariff exposure remains the central legal and diplomatic question ahead of the deadline.

What Happens Next

With the 18 October deadline days away, the White House must either impose the secondary tariffs, invoke the national-interest waiver, or argue — as Bessent does — that the diesel deal falls outside the law's definitions. The outcome will test both the legal architecture of the Graham Act and the durability of Trump's energy diplomacy with Russia, with significant downstream consequences for countries like India that have deepened Russian energy ties since 2022.