The United States House of Representatives has passed legislation that would let US President Donald Trump impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas and tighten sanctions on Moscow over the Ukraine war.
The chamber backed the measure by 262 votes to 159 on September 16, sending it to the White House. Trump is expected to sign it into law.
The text is named the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, after the South Carolina Republican who drove it for more than a year and died on July 11 aged 71. The Senate had already cleared the bill by 86 votes to 11 on August 7, weeks after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky lobbied senators in Washington.
Some 203 Republicans, 58 Democrats and one independent voted in favour. Seven Republicans and 152 Democrats opposed the bill.
Most Democratic objections concerned the tariff authority handed to the White House rather than the substance of support for Kyiv.
The bill would require visa denials and asset freezes for named individuals and entities, among them Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior military commanders, oligarchs and Russian banks. It would also target vessels in the so-called shadow fleet used to evade Western oil restrictions.
At Trump’s request, the text extends existing sanctions on Iran’s energy and weapons sectors.
The tariff power is discretionary rather than automatic. It would apply to goods from the five largest importers of Russian crude or gas, a group including China and India, and to countries helping Moscow evade sanctions.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries voted against, arguing Congress should not grant the President “unfettered authority to visit more tariffs on the world”. The cost, he said, would fall on American households.
Congressman Michael McCaul, who introduced the text in the House, told a Rules Committee hearing on September 14 that Graham had been a friend and a mentor. The two shared a belief that “America is strongest at home when it projects strength abroad”, he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the measure when the Senate approved it, describing Graham as a firm believer in coordinated sanctions.
The European Union has adopted 21 packages of restrictive measures against Russia since 2022 and is preparing a 22nd. It has preferred sanctions to trade barriers, resisting American suggestions that it match Washington with duties on Chinese and Indian goods.
In her State of the European Union address on September 16, von der Leyen said what was needed was “not necessarily new sanctions, but above all the enforcement of existing ones”.
The bloc is due to ban all remaining imports of Russian gas from January 1, 2027.
