JOINT BASE ANDREWS, Md. — The hammer is loaded, and President Trump is choosing exactly when to swing it. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Saturday night that the President is using a 60-day window to study what the tough new Graham Act sanctions and tariffs would do to the world economy, and to America’s, before deciding the right mix to put on Moscow and its oil customers.

“The problem is these sanctions were not just sanctions on Russia,” Rubio told reporters on the tarmac before departing for Uzbekistan and India. “They include tariffs on a number of countries, India, for example, and others. And so 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 economy and even to the U.S. economy.”

Rubio said that is exactly why Congress wrote waivers into the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. “One of the reasons the waivers were put in there is understanding that they would need some period of time to study this,” he said, pointing to pressure on world energy supplies from Iran, the Strait of Hormuz, Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and the Russia-Ukraine war, where energy infrastructure is being hit. “You have to take all of that into account and weigh it against each other.”

The leverage is already in writing. President Trump’s Oct. 16 executive order sets a 500 percent duty increase on goods from Russia and 100 percent increases on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas that knowingly make new purchases, and on the top five facilitators of sanctions evasion. The President then waived the new duties for now under the national-interest authority in the law, while every existing Russia sanction stays fully in force.

Rubio also noted that partners like India have already begun diversifying away from Russian energy but cannot pivot overnight. “They’re also an important ally and partner of the United States,” he said. “We need that period of time to sort of study all this and figure out what the right combination is.” That is peace through strength, with the President’s finger on the trigger. Watch Secretary Rubio in the State Department video above.