President Trump signed Lindsey Graham's sweeping Russia sanctions bill into law Friday, handing the White House massive new tariff powers and promising higher energy costs for working Americans — while the global energy market simply routes around Washington's moral posturing.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 cleared Congress with commanding bipartisan margins — 86-11 in the Senate, 262-159 in the House — the kind of bipartisan agreement that reliably means the public is about to get sold out. The bill targets Russian oil and gas revenues and authorizes tariffs up to 100% on countries that buy Russian energy, including China. Squeezing global energy supply carries a direct cost: higher prices at the pump and on utility bills for Americans already stretched thin.
The legislation, named for the late senator who died in July, also extends expiring Iran sanctions and targets Moscow's fleet of "shadow tankers" — the vessels that have allowed Russia to keep shipping crude worldwide despite existing sanctions, according to The Guardian. That shadow fleet exists because the current sanctions regime is porous. European nations continue to purchase Russian gas through intermediaries, and the new bill's answer is to give one man — the president — sweeping discretion to punish buyers with tariffs or waive the sanctions altogether.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promptly thanked Trump on social media, praising Graham's push and calling for the law's provisions to be implemented "fully and swiftly." "Senator Graham never doubted for a second that America has enough strength to stand up to dictators and achieve results if it acts THE RIGHT WAY," Zelensky wrote, per the New York Post. A foreign head of state is lobbying the American government to enforce a law that will raise costs for American citizens. That is his interest. Whether it is America's interest is a separate question — one the bill's supporters never adequately answer.
Rep. Michael McCaul, who led the House push, declared that "evil is on the march" and insisted the bill would force Putin to the negotiating table. That claim has been made about every sanctions package since 2022. The war is now in its fifth year.
Meanwhile, Putin showed no sign of pressure. On the same day the bill was signed, Reuters reported, the Russian president accused Ukraine of interfering in Russia's parliamentary election and hindering peace talks. Putin claimed Ukraine had "long degenerated into a dictatorship" — pointing to Zelensky's expired mandate — and said Ukrainian strikes on Russian targets proved Kyiv's offers to negotiate were disingenuous. Kyiv counters that no election can be held under the state of emergency in place since Russia's 2022 invasion.
The bill's broad tariff provisions drew criticism even from within the coalition that passed it. The Guardian reported that many Democrats complained the legislation gave Trump "excessive authority" to impose tariffs — the same tariffs he has already wielded broadly, despite a Supreme Court ruling prohibiting him from doing so under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The irony is sharp: Democrats handed a president they call authoritarian new sweeping economic powers, then complained about it.
The fundamental question remains unanswered: what is the exit? Sanctions have not ended this war in four and a half years. A tougher sanctions bill does not define a metric for success, a cost ceiling for American families, or a point at which Washington declares the experiment failed. Working Americans will pick up the tab either way — and the lobbyists and think-tank voices cheering this bill won't be the ones paying it.
