EPA/ShutterstockUS President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping sanctions bill, taking aim at Russia’s economy by punishing major purchasers of its oil and gas.
The bill, passed by the US House of Representatives earlier this week, gives Trump broad powers to levy tariffs of up to 100% on the top five purchasers of Russian oil and gas – most significantly China and India.
At Trump’s behest, the bill also extends to Iran’s energy and weapons sectors.
The bill is named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Ukraine’s staunchest defenders in Washington before his death on 11 July.
Additionally, the bill includes sanctions against Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior figures within the Russian government as well as banks and other financial institutions and Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers used to circumvent existing sanctions.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, a New York Democrat, previously described the legislation as “scorching sanctions” which would “throttle Putin’s war machine”.
Data from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, or CREA, shows that China accounted for 50% of Russian crude exports between December 2022 and August 2026, followed by India at 37%.
Turkey and the European Union each accounted for 5% during the same time period, although Russian energy exports to the EU have been decreasing.
Senator Graham had long sought to push the Trump administration to do more to punish Russia for the war that followed its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The bill also had the support of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who praised 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.
Prior to his death, he was widely considered one of Ukraine’s fiercest allies on Capitol Hill, at a time when Republicans were bitterly divided over the extent of US involvement abroad and the amount of aid being given to Ukraine.
