US Congress passes a Russia sanctions law allowing 100% tariffs on countries that buy its oil and gas

The text came to a vote after more than a year and a half of negotiations in Congress, according to ABC News. It bears the name of Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator who died suddenly in July, shortly after a trip to Kyiv where he had announced, according to NBC News, an agreement with the White House to move it forward.

The vote blurred party lines, notes NBC News: Democratic leadership opposed it, fearing an extension of the president's tariff powers. Democratic representatives Gregory Meeks, Don Beyer, and Richard Neal estimated that the text would "do more harm than good".

House Speaker Mike Johnson hailed "a powerful message of American unity", reports NBC News. Sputnik notes, for its part, that Russia has added Lindsey Graham to its list of "terrorists and extremists".

According to The Atlantic, "the text is not what it seems to be": the magazine argues that it does not impose any significant new sanctions, and that it allows Donald Trump to lift the measures already planned, in the name of national interest.

The Atlantic adds that the text restores to the president some of the tariff power that the Supreme Court had taken away from him in February, without detailing the decision in question.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies, cited by the American press, notes that the device replaces the uniform 500% customs duty provided for by the 2025 version of the text with "a more measured instrument".

Deutsche Welle details a little-commented-on aspect elsewhere: beyond the customs duties targeting buyers of Russian energy, Trump could also impose taxes of up to 500% on direct imports from Russia.

According to the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), cited by the BBC, Russian oil is only part of India's energy landscape: in July 2026, it accounted for more than half of the country's imports, far ahead of the United Arab Emirates (10.8%), Saudi Arabia (9.6%), Venezuela (6.3%), Brazil (5.5%), Oman (5.3%), and the United States (2.9%) combined.

The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) calculates, also according to the BBC, that India absorbed 37% of Russian crude oil exports between December 2022 and August 2026 — behind China, which took half, but ahead of Turkey and the European Union, each at 5%.

The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs specifies, according to Gulf Times, that the issue has already been "discussed at a high level" with American interlocutors, and that its implications for the bilateral relationship as well as the international energy market have been "very clearly exposed" from the Indian side.

For the Qatari press, cited by Gulf Times and Al Jazeera, the issue goes beyond just pressure on Moscow: if Asian buyers must reduce their Russian purchases, alternative suppliers of liquefied natural gas and oil, starting with the Gulf, could derive a commercial benefit — provided they themselves escape the sanctions mechanism.

In Kyiv, the vote is seen as part of the war dossier rather than a commercial text. On Telegram, Volodymyr Zelensky judged it "symbolic" that the adoption occurred on the night of a Russian attack involving ballistic missiles, other missiles, and drones, reports the Kyiv Post.

The Ukrainian president reported damage to civilian infrastructure in eight regions, including energy facilities in Sumy and Odessa and residential buildings in Kyiv and Odessa: 20 injured in Kyiv, 7 in Odessa, including young children, according to the same source.

A few hours before the vote, after a drone strike killed five people near Nikopol, Zelensky had called on his partners to support the Graham text and to tighten European sanctions, reports Ukrinform.