Trump signs sweeping Russia sanctions bill
The bill is named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch advocate of aid for Ukraine.
Trump approves sweeping Russia sanctions legislation
US President Donald Trump has signed a wide-ranging sanctions bill aimed at Russia’s economy by targeting major buyers of its oil and gas.
The measure, which the US House of Representatives passed earlier this week, grants Trump extensive authority to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the five biggest purchasers of Russian oil and gas — most notably China and India.
At Trump’s request, the legislation also reaches Iran’s energy and weapons industries.
The bill is named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters in Washington before his death on 11 July.
The 48-page measure, officially called the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, contains exemptions for countries that get less than 15% of their natural gas from Russia and are taking steps to reduce that reliance.
It also imposes sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior Russian officials, banks and other financial institutions, and Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers used to evade existing sanctions.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a New York Democrat, had earlier called the legislation “scorching sanctions” that would “throttle Putin’s war machine”.
Figures from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, or CREA, indicate that China made up 50% of Russian crude exports between December 2022 and August 2026, with India accounting for 37%.
Turkey and the European Union each represented 5% over the same period, though Russian energy exports to the EU have been falling.
Senator Graham had long pressed the Trump administration to do more to punish Russia over the war that began after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The bill also had the backing of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who welcomed its passage by the House of Representatives earlier this week.
“It is symbolic that the US House of Representatives' passage of Lindsey Graham's sanctions bill took place on the night of yet another Russian attack on Ukraine involving ballistic missiles, other missiles, and drones,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram on 17 September.
Graham, 71, died on 11 July of an “aortic dissection” caused by cardiovascular disease shortly after returning from a trip to Kyiv.
“He died doing the work he was born to do,” Trump said at the time.
Before his death, he was widely seen as one of Ukraine’s most determined allies on Capitol Hill, during a period when Republicans were sharply split over the scale of US involvement overseas and the level of aid being provided to Ukraine.