Bill would give Trump 100% tariff authority over top Russian oil buyers
The House will vote Wednesday on the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026, legislation that would give Donald Trump new authority to impose 100% tariffs on top purchasers of Russian oil. The measure passed a House rules committee vote Monday and is due for a rule vote on the House floor Tuesday afternoon, followed by a general vote Wednesday.
The bill would target Russia’s energy and defense industries, as well as the country’s “shadow fleet” of tankers skirting existing oil sanctions, and would give Trump new authority to impose 100% tariffs on top purchasers of Russian oil, including China and India. The bill is co-authored by the late Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who died earlier this year.
The measure faces considerable pushback from two directions. Lawmakers from the isolationist wing of the Republican Party have said they will not back the bill, making Democratic support crucial to its passage. At the same time, prominent Democrats who have been stalwart backers of Ukraine have raised objections, arguing the bill would give undue tariff power to the US president that could then be abused and turned against US allies.
The opposition is led by Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House foreign affairs committee; Representative Don Beyer, who serves on Congress’s joint economic committee; and Richard Neal, the ranking Democrat on the House ways and means committee. In a joint statement, they said the legislation would do “more harm than good.”
“This bill would dramatically expand presidential tariff authorities while failing to mandate sanctions on Russia, both of which are unacceptable,” the three Democrats said. “These flaws would raise Americans’ prices while undermining support for Ukraine in the long term.”
Trump’s use of tariffs against US partners such as Canada and Mexico has made expanding his powers a controversial aim even among senior Democrats who have long backed Kyiv.
Neal, in an interview Monday, framed his opposition around Trump’s existing tariff use. “I just feel that the abusive nature of these tariffs, the way he’s used them to drive away friends across the globe, what is our protection afterwards?” Neal said. “And if he decides, by the way, to take the harsh position as it relates to Ukraine, he could still do that as well.”
Critics have accused those Democrats who oppose the bill of not wanting to hand Trump a win before the midterm elections, effectively holding the bill hostage to partisan politics while Ukraine is on the cusp of another brutal winter with dwindling munitions to protect itself from attacks by Russian missiles. Congressional staffers described frenzied last-minute lobbying in the halls of Congress as the vote approached, with one Democratic staffer calling it “the one opportunity that we have to help Ukraine before they enter the slow winter.”
Sources said negotiations among Democrats were under way to propose changing the bill to limit the number of countries eligible for sanctions to 11. One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Representative Steny Hoyer, offered an amendment Tuesday that identified 10 countries subject to the secondary sanctions: China, India, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, Slovakia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Representative Linda Sánchez, a California Democrat, told members of her party during a meeting this week to “get off the fucking bill,” according to a remark first reported by Punchbowl News. “I said what I said,” Sánchez wrote on social media in confirming the quote. “We absolutely must support Ukraine and punish Russia for its invasion. But why the fuck would we give Trump more power to tariff whatever country he’s currently mad at and drive up costs further for working families?”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday encouraged the US to increase pressure on the Russian economy to end the war. “Lindsey Graham’s sanctions bill is still a bill, unfortunately, and not a law,” he said in a nightly address. “It is important that it becomes law. I thank everyone around the world who supports this approach and who knows that strength works.”
Vitaly Kim, a member of Zelenskyy’s cabinet who serves as minister of veterans affairs, said at the Ukraine Action Summit in Washington on Saturday that economic pressure on Russia was the quickest route to ending the war. “International support through sanctions to stop Russian economy, so they cannot buy weapons … will help destroy their economy,” Kim said, comparing the effect to Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries and military plants. “Your politicians see that our tactics to attack the economy of Russia and destroy the military sector of Russia are working. From my opinion, you will support us in this direction to attack the economy of Russia to make them stop.”
Trump is understood to have given Republican allies in Congress the go-ahead to submit the bill, breaking a more than two-year deadlock that had persisted through Graham’s death. Graham had lobbied Trump to back Ukraine even while remaining one of his closest allies and defenders in Congress.
The bill is being closely watched by foreign governments and advocates for Ukraine, who have said it is the best option available and is broadly supported by the US public. Mykola Murskyj, a senior adviser at Razom, a US non-profit that advocates for pro-Ukrainian legislation, said opposition from Democratic leaders was disappointing.
“It’s disappointing that some Democratic leaders are pushing against this pro-Ukraine bill,” Murskyj said. “Draining Russia’s war coffers is the most effective way to get the Kremlin to end its war. We should all be able to get behind that.”
“These tariffs are crucial for ending Russia’s war,” Murskyj added. “Countries buying Russian oil and funding Russia’s war should no longer be able to that with impunity. They should face a choice: cheap access to the American market, or bloody Russian oil.”