The Senate voted 86-11 on Friday to slap up to 500% tariffs on Russian imports and 100% tariffs on countries buying Russian energy — a bipartisan sprint to codify perpetual economic warfare that will raise costs for American families while a foreign president watched from the chamber gallery.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, renamed to honor the late South Carolina senator who died July 11 after a trip to Kyiv, now heads to the House. It targets Russian officials, banks, oligarchs, and Moscow's oil "shadow fleet," while also extending sanction authority against Iran's energy and weapons sectors. But the real story is what it does at home: it hands the president broad new tariff powers over the top five importers of Russian oil and gas — chiefly China and India — with limited congressional ability to roll them back.
This is the uniparty at work. When 86 senators agree on something, working Americans should check their wallets. The bill codifies sanctions that make it harder for future administrations to remove unilaterally, according to the Atlantic Council — locking in economic conflict regardless of what voters want. And it was shepherded through by Graham's sister, Darline Graham, appointed to his seat after his death, who declared the bill "forces those primary countries keeping Russia's economy afloat to make a simple yet critical choice."
The foreign lobbying was brazen. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with senators from both parties hours after Graham's funeral and watched from the gallery as the Senate took its first procedural votes. A foreign head of state, personally lobbying Congress to commit American economic muscle to his war — and the Senate rolled over.
A handful of senators tried to pump the brakes. Rand Paul argued the tariffs would "make American families poorer by raising taxes and making imports more expensive" and push Russia and China closer together rather than apart. "China is not going to get this 100% tariff and say, 'Oh, we're sorry, we're no longer going to cooperate with Russia,'" Paul said. Ron Wyden warned the bill gives Trump discretion to "pick and choose even more countries to tariff every 180 days" with "no mechanism for Congress to roll back these tariffs."
Georgia Democrat Raphael Warnock placed a hold on the bill, calling it a choice between "putting a check on Putin's aggression and putting a check on this president's tariff regime." He backed down after getting a written commitment from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that the tariff authority was limited to the top five purchasers of Russian oil and gas. The Daily Caller noted Warnock had previously called this "giving this unhinged president new powers to raise the price of everything through tariffs." So much for that conviction.
Fox News framed the bill as "bone-crushing" and played up the bipartisan triumph. The Guardian and Deseret News noted Democratic concerns about expanded tariff powers but buried the core question: what is the U.S. interest here, what does it cost, and what's the exit? Nobody asked. The bill includes waivers for countries importing less than 15% of Russian natural gas and taking steps to reduce purchases — a carve-out that suggests the sanctions are more performative than punishing.
Graham himself said shortly before his death he wanted to end the war "with diplomacy." Instead, his legacy bill escalates economic warfare with no defined endpoint, no cost accounting, and no exit strategy — while America's southern border stays wide open and infrastructure crumbles. The House takes it up after August recess.
