Congress should pass tougher sanctions on Russia. President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine should carry real consequences, and countries helping finance it through purchases of Russian oil and gas should not get a free pass.
The Senate overwhelmingly agreed. To its credit, it also improved the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act before passing it. The current legislation more carefully identifies which countries can be targeted and requires the executive branch to explain its methodology and justify the tariff rate it chooses.
Those are important guardrails. But before the House gives the president another major tariff power, it should finish the job.
Once a country falls within the statute, the president may impose tariffs of up to 100% on essentially every product that country sells to Americans. Congress requires the administration to explain the rate it chooses, but it does not provide a meaningful statutory standard for deciding whether that rate should be 10%, 50%, or 100%. That is an extraordinary amount of discretion over American commerce.
I raise this concern from experience. For more than a year, the Liberty Justice Center has been on the front lines of litigation over presidential tariffs. We challenged the administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs and ultimately prevailed at the Supreme Court. When the administration turned to Section 122 of the Trade Act, we challenged those tariffs, too. And when that authority reached its statutory limit and another nearly worldwide tariff regime followed under Section 301, we went back to court.
The lesson for Congress is simple: write tariff laws for the president who will use every inch of the authority Congress grants, not for the president lawmakers hope will exercise restraint.
The Graham bill is narrower than the tariff authorities we have challenged. It generally limits its secondary-tariff provisions to the five largest purchasers of Russian crude oil or natural gas and leading countries facilitating Russian oil-sanctions evasion. It also requires the administration to provide congressional committees with its methodology for determining which countries qualify and a substantive rationale for the tariff rate imposed.
That is good legislating. But identifying who may be punished is only half the delegation question. Congress should also define more clearly how they may be punished.
A country’s purchases of Russian crude oil could expose every product it exports to the United States to an additional tariff of as much as 100%. The American company importing machinery, clothing, electronics, food, or other goods from that country may have nothing to do with Russian oil. Nevertheless, its imports can bear the full economic punishment. And these tariffs come on top of duties imposed under other trade laws.
Congress has told the executive branch to provide a “substantive rationale” for the rate it chooses. But requiring the president to explain a decision is not the same as Congress establishing the rule that governs the decision.
What level of Russian oil purchases warrants a 10% tariff? What warrants 50%? When is 100% justified? If a country substantially cuts its Russian purchases, how much should its tariff fall?
The legislation leaves enormous room for the executive to answer those questions itself. The Constitution gives Congress the power to impose duties. Congress has long delegated limited tariff authority to presidents in defined circumstances. But the Supreme Court recently reminded us why the details matter: presidential tariff power must actually come from Congress.
Congress should pay equal attention to the other half of that principle. When it delegates tariff authority, it should determine the policy rather than merely establish the outer boundary of what the president may do.
The House can strengthen this bill without weakening sanctions. It could create clearer standards linking tariff rates to the conduct Congress wants to deter. Larger purchases of Russian energy could justify stronger penalties. Meaningful reductions could require corresponding tariff reductions.
The precise mechanism is for Congress to decide. That is the point.
The Senate has already shown that tough sanctions and meaningful limits on executive power are not mutually exclusive. The House should build on those improvements.
OPINION: RUSSIA CAN STILL SELL OIL. IT JUST CAN’T MAKE GASOLINE
Russia should face stronger sanctions. Congress should pass them. But it should not stop one step short of the most important safeguard.
Sanction Russia. Choke off the money helping finance Putin’s war. But don’t write the next blank tariff check while doing it.
Sara Albrecht is chairwoman and CEO of the Liberty Justice Center, a nonprofit public-interest law firm that has led litigation challenging the Trump administration’s use of emergency and trade statutes to impose tariffs.