House passes Russia sanctions bill named for Lindsey Graham, sending it to Trump

WASHINGTON — The House voted Wednesday to pass a major bill aimed at imposing sanctions on Russia and Iran, sending it to President Donald Trump for his signature.

The vote was 262-159.

The 61-page legislation, which passed the Senate 86-11 last month, was named the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, in honor of the late senator, who was an outspoken proponent of the cause before his unexpected death in July.

The bill takes aim at Russia’s energy sector by punishing the largest buyers of its oil and gas, allowing the president to impose tariffs on goods from those countries, which may include China and India.

The goal: to slash the revenue streams that fund Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine, which began in 2022.

“The act’s most consequential new authority is its provision to place tariffs of up to 100 percent on third countries purchasing significant volumes of Russian energy,” according to the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies. “This replaces the blanket 500 percent tariff in the 2025 version with a more measured instrument, alongside a carve-out for countries taking significant steps to reduce dependence on Russian energy and whose imports amount to less than 15 percent of Russia’s annual natural gas exports.”

The Atlantic Council said the bill would “authorize the Trump administration to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on Chinese imports on national security grounds if China continues purchasing Russian oil. This approach assumes that tariffs will compel China to reduce imports of Russian energy.”

The measure would also target Russian government officials, as well as oligarchs, some family members and Russian financial institutions.

At Trump’s request, the package would also extend sanction authority aimed at slashing funding for Iran’s weapons and energy sectors.

Some top House Democrats criticized the bill, fretting that it would grant broad tariff authorities that Trump could abuse. But in the end, those hesitations weren’t enough to scuttle it.

“I have always been in favor of the Russia sanctions bill,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters Monday. “But we had to build a consensus around it, and I think we have it.”

Daniel Balson of Razom for Ukraine, a U.S. advocacy group supporting Ukraine, called the bill’s passage “momentous.”

“It comes as Russian officials move towards full-scale mobilization and intensify their bombing campaign against Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure,” he said in a statement. “This bill sends an unmistakable message: for so long as Putin continues to inflict suffering on Ukraine, Congress will continue to impose consequences on Putin.”