By Admire Manzamwa
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed a sweeping Russia and Iran sanctions bill championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham into law on Friday, the White House announced, setting in motion an unprecedented array of economic penalties aimed at choking off funds fueling Moscow’s war against Ukraine.
The legislation, formally titled the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and natural gas, as well as countries that facilitate sanctions evasion. It also sanctions Russian officials, financial institutions and the so-called “shadow fleet” of tankers Moscow uses to circumvent existing restrictions.
The bill cleared the Senate 86-11 in August and the House 262-159 on Wednesday, with several dozen Democrats joining Republican lawmakers to support the measure. Trump had publicly promised to back the legislation and signed it without delay.
The measure is named for Graham, the South Carolina Republican and longtime Russia hawk who died in July at age 71, before the bill he spent more than a year shepherding could be enacted. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who led the fight for the bill’s passage in the House, said the measure “will cripple Russia’s war machine and finally bring Putin to the negotiating table.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Graham’s Democratic co-author on the bill, said after the House vote that if Graham were alive, “he would be jubilant about our bill’s passage — and already thinking about the next one.” Blumenthal added: “Putin is a thug who understands only force and strength, which is what we must show clearly and unequivocally.”
The law requires the administration to impose blocking sanctions within 30 days on Russia’s leadership, its central bank, major lenders including Sberbank and Gazprombank, state-owned companies, energy projects and the shadow fleet. It also extends the existing Iran sanctions law for another five years.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Trump for signing the bill and praised Graham’s role in a social media post. “Senator Graham never doubted for a second that America has enough strength to stand up to dictators and achieve results if it acts THE RIGHT WAY,” Zelensky wrote on X. “The best way to honor Lindsey’s memory will be to implement the provisions of this law fully and swiftly.”
A vocal set of Democratic lawmakers had warned that Trump could use his new expanded tariff powers to impose fresh levies on the European Union and elsewhere. The legislation does grant the president broad discretion on whom to target and whether to impose the tariffs at all, and it includes waiver authority if he certifies to Congress that a waiver is in the national interest.
The White House described the measure as expanding statutory sanctions, tariffs and prohibitions against Russia while extending existing sanctions against Iran, according to the White House statement.
This story is based on reporting by the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Post and Le Monde.