US Senate Advances 2026 Russia Sanctions Bill, Raising 100% Tariff Threat on India and China Oil Trade

8th August 2026 at 8:35 AM

1 minute read

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Washington not to try to strong-arm India and China with tariffs and sanctions, saying, You cannot talk to India or China in that way.

The Senate cleared a major Russia sanctions bill Friday, 86-11, sending it to the House. The headline number: 100% tariffs on the top five countries still buying Russian oil and gas. China and India top that list, which is exactly the point.

The bill carries the name of the man who spent over a year fighting to get it passed and didn’t live to see it happen. Lindsey Graham died July 11, days after standing in front of tanks in Kyiv and announcing he’d finally struck a deal with the White House. His sister, Darline Graham, now holds his Senate seat. She’s called it the piece of legislation he considered his most consequential.

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Trump gets authority to impose tariffs up to 100% on the five biggest buyers of Russian energy — right now that’s China, India, Azerbaijan, Hungary, and Slovakia. There’s an exemption built in for countries importing less than 15% of their gas from Russia and actively cutting back. Beyond the tariffs, the bill sanctions Putin directly, plus Russian oligarchs, banks, and the “shadow fleet” of tankers Russia uses to dodge existing restrictions. It also extends the 1996 Iran Sanctions Act through 2031.

Richard Blumenthal, who co-led the bill with Graham for years, didn’t hide the emotion after the vote. Graham would be “proud of what we’ve done,” he told reporters, calling the sanctions a “sledgehammer” aimed at “all who are complicit in this murderous, criminal war of aggression.”

Not everyone’s reading this as a clean win. Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks and Don Beyer argue the bill hands Trump tariff powers he’s already shown he’ll use aggressively powers that could let him dodge the accountability piece entirely. “We welcome our Senate colleagues’ urgent effort to support Ukraine,” they said in a joint statement, “but this bill would not achieve those goals. Instead, it would allow President Trump to dodge holding Russia accountable and impose yet more tariffs in his destructive trade wars, leaving Americans to foot the bill.” The House is out until August 31. Whatever happens next happens there.