Graham Sanctions Bill Passed: Trump Gets Sweeping New Tariff Power Over Russia

Congress has passed the most sweeping Russia sanctions law in years, handing the president extraordinary tariff powers aimed at Moscow's energy revenue. Within a month of signing it, President Donald Trump used the law's own waiver clause to put most of it on hold.

The measure — the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 — passed the Senate 86 to 11 in August and the House 262 to 159 in September, and Trump signed it into law on September 18. It is named for Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the longtime Russia hawk who died in July.

The law's headline provisions were designed to squeeze the money funding Russia's war in Ukraine. They included a tariff of up to 500 percent on all goods imported from Russia, and tariffs of up to 100 percent on goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas if they made new purchases on or after October 18. A further 100 percent duty targeted the top facilitators of Russian sanctions evasion. The act also mandated sanctions against major Russian banks, including Sberbank, VTB and Gazprombank, along with the energy and defense sectors and the "shadow fleet" of tankers accused of helping Moscow evade existing restrictions. It extended the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 through 2031.

But on October 16, two days before the new duties were to take effect, Trump signed an executive order implementing the act by waiving most of its sanctions provisions and tariffs, certifying that the pause was "in the national interests of the United States." Measures imposed under earlier executive orders remain in force.

The waiver followed an agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin under which the Kremlin agreed to eventually release millions of tons of diesel into the global market amid soaring prices. Administration officials pointed to high diesel costs at home and to the president's push to end the war.

The reaction was swift and bipartisan. Lawmakers from both parties accused the White House of giving ground to Putin — a charge sharpened by timing, as Russian forces pounded Ukraine's energy grid with drones and missiles hours after the order was signed. The pause brought immediate relief to major buyers of Russian energy such as India and China, which the order did not name explicitly.

The episode illustrates the unusual structure of the law Congress built. The Graham Act simultaneously armed the presidency with the harshest economic tools ever authorized against Russia, restricted the president's authority to lift sanctions outright — and left open the waiver channel through which those tools were set aside, at least for now. The waivers remain in effect until the president or the secretary of state determines that further action is appropriate, and most of the act's provisions do not expire until September 18, 2031. The leverage, in other words, still exists. Whether it is used is now a matter of White House discretion.

Source: Reuters