The late Sen. Lindsey Graham was a fierce opponent of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and other authoritarian regimes. A new law named in Graham’s honor would strengthen sanctions against Moscow and Tehran and could help bring an end to a long and devastating war.
Congress should pass it without delay.
The Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia Act would heavily penalize Putin’s economy by targeting his energy and financial sectors. It would put pressure on countries that fuel continued conflict. It would also single out and sanction those, including Putin himself, who have been waging savage war against Ukraine and its people for more than a decade.
The United States has tried before to punish Russia for its invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory, but the new legislation would be the most sweeping sanctions regime imposed on Moscow so far.
It places stiff tariffs on the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and gas, and the five countries that most help Russia’s evasion of energy sanctions. China, India, and other nations that keep buying discounted Russian oil and gas are among those targeted.
The U.S. trade representative would be granted powers to impose steep secondary tariffs of up to 100% at the president’s discretion. Additional provisions were added to extend expiring sanctions on Iran’s energy and weapons sectors.
The bill “equips the president with the leverage needed to impose real costs on Putin and pressure him to negotiate in good faith,” remarked Meaghan Mobbs, a Ukraine expert and director of the Center for Safety and Security at the Independent Women’s Forum. It also “highlights the enduring strength of bipartisan support for Ukraine in the Senate,” Mobbs said.
Most Senate Democrats broadly support the bill, but some on the House Foreign Affairs Committee express concern. “This is not so much a sanctions bill as it is a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs, including on our European allies, that hurt American families,” Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the panel’s top Democrat, claimed.
But real allies do not undercut major American foreign policy objectives. Trump has been clear that ending Russia’s war is chief among them.
Russia first invaded the Donbas region in 2014, and in 2022, it escalated its intentions in the face of President Joe Biden’s weakness to the conquest of all of Ukraine. Putin’s imperial hopes were dashed by poor Russian military planning and staunch resistance from Ukrainians.
But Ukraine has suffered 160,000 casualties. The Center for Strategic and International Studies puts Russia’s losses at an astounding 1.4 million as of early July.
Putin and his ambition to reconstitute the Russian Empire are chiefly responsible for the war, but other nations have prolonged it. China, Iran, and North Korea supply Russia with weapons and enable its indiscriminate drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Beijing and Pyongyang have even sent military advisers and soldiers. Together, they are what Bradley Bowman, senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, calls the “Axis of Aggressors.”
The Axis threatens the U.S. and its interests. It is composed of autocracies, mostly with centrally planned, failing economies. But other, more successful and developed countries are also buttressing Putin by buying large quantities of Russian energy, for which they pay hard currency.
This is untenable. Lines must be drawn. The world should see who supports Russia’s war and who truly opposes it.
In the final weeks before his death on July 11, Graham worked across the aisle to secure support for the sanctions bill. It passed the Senate but still faces hurdles before heading to the House.
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Its passage would be a fitting tribute to the eponymous senator and would also be a landmark achievement in combating sanctions evasion.
The legislation would give the U.S. tools to compel allies and perhaps some enemies to stop fueling Putin’s war machine. It would also mark a tremendous setback for the Axis of Aggressors in its war against the West.