The United States Senate on Friday passed the most sweeping Russia sanctions package of the war, 86 votes to 11, and handed the president a weapon that had nothing to do with Russia’s borders: authority to slap duties of up to 100 percent on the five biggest customers for Russian oil and natural gas. The bill carries the name of Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator who spent a year negotiating it and died a day after announcing the deal with the White House. The vote was the culmination of his campaign; the tariff clause is the part that will keep lawyers busy for years.
The package does what its name promises. It names President Vladimir Putin and his senior officials and generals, the banks that serve the Kremlin, and the country’s big energy projects. It widens pressure on the aging tankers Russia reflags to slip past current restrictions. The White House can set the measures aside if it certifies to Congress that a waiver serves the national interest. And it gives the president the tariff authority, with an exception for countries that buy less than 15 percent of their gas from Russia and are actively cutting that share. China and India, the two largest customers for Russian energy, are the obvious targets.
The vote was bipartisan, but the unanimity was thinner than the count suggests. The tariff power troubled Democrats and some Republicans, who argued that it would let the president raise prices on American consumers in the middle of a trade war. An amendment by Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden to strip the tariff authority failed, 32 to 64. Senator Raphael Warnock held up passage until the administration, through the US trade representative, gave him a written commitment that the duties would come off once those countries end their purchases or their help in dodging sanctions. The senior Democrat on the House committee that handles foreign affairs warned that the bill would let President Trump dodge holding Russia accountable while imposing yet more tariffs, and push the costs onto American households.
The politics of the moment were impossible to miss. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had visited the Capitol the week before, after Graham’s funeral, meeting senators from both parties and taking in the opening procedural votes from the gallery. In the debate, senators invoked Graham’s name repeatedly. His sister, Darline Graham, appointed by South Carolina’s governor to fill his seat, said the legislation hits Putin where it hurts. Democrats who had spent months negotiating with the dead senator described the vote as a message to Kyiv and to Moscow alike: the Senate’s answer to four years of war is not less pressure but more. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who co-led the effort with Graham, framed it in the same terms, telling the chamber the vote told the people of Ukraine they are not alone and told Vladimir Putin he will not conquer them. Jeanne Shaheen, the senior Democrat on the Senate panel that oversees foreign policy, warned that every American retreat from tough action invites a Russian escalation, and argued the timing mattered: pushing the bill through before Russia’s own elections puts pressure on Putin to take peace talks seriously.
The bill now goes to the House, which is not in session and will not take it up until the chamber reconvenes in late August. President Trump has signaled support, including for the Iran provisions, and is pressing the House to pass it quickly. The delay matters. The war grinds on, and every month of waiting is a month in which the measure’s most powerful tool sits unused on a desk. The Senate did its part on Friday. The House will decide whether the weapon ever gets fired, and the White House will decide at whom.