President Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 on Friday, putting into law a sweeping sanctions package that arms the administration with tariff authority of up to 100 percent on the biggest buyers of Russian crude oil and natural gas.
The White House announced the signing after the bill cleared both chambers of Congress with overwhelming bipartisan margins, 86, 11 in the Senate and 262, 159 in the House. The legislation targets Russian energy exports that continue to bankroll Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine and renews existing sanctions on Iran's energy and weapons sectors that were set to expire later this year.
Named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who championed the measure before his death, the law gives the Trump administration a concrete enforcement tool: the power to impose targeted tariffs of up to 100 percent on countries that remain the largest importers of Russian crude oil or natural gas. That provision alone puts major purchasers of Russian energy on notice that Washington is willing to make their trade with Moscow far more expensive.
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, led the push for passage in the House and spoke on the chamber floor on Wednesday, the day the bill cleared with 262 votes in favor. McCaul framed the legislation in blunt terms, telling colleagues the bill would keep Putin's ambitions in check and prevent him from marching deeper into Eastern Europe.
"Evil is on the march, history is calling, and now is the time to act."
McCaul also invoked Graham directly, recalling the late senator's own assessment of the bill's significance.
"Lindsey Graham once said this bill would be his great achievement. I can think of no better way... to honor his life and his legacy than by passing these tough sanctions."
McCaul said the legislation will "force" Putin to "the negotiating table", a formulation that frames the tariff authority not as a punitive gesture but as leverage designed to change Moscow's calculations about the cost of continuing the war.
The Senate had already passed the bill by an 86, 11 margin, a lopsided tally that left little doubt about the measure's bipartisan support. Only eleven senators voted no, and the legislation's champions made clear they intended to move it to the president's desk quickly.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky responded to the signing with a post on X, praising both Trump and the late senator whose name the law carries. Zelensky recalled Graham's visits to Ukraine and his insistence on maintaining economic pressure on Russia.
"When Lindsey Graham was here in Ukraine, he would always talk about how important it was not to ease pressure on Russia, to strengthen sanctions and seek a path to peace. In particular, in those capitals that choose to buy Russian oil, provide financial services to Russia, and allow Russian companies linked to Putin and the war to engage in normal business relations in other countries."
Zelensky added that 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."
The Ukrainian president thanked Trump directly for signing the bill and pressed for rapid implementation. "The best way to honor Lindsey's memory will be to implement the provisions of this law fully and swiftly," Zelensky wrote.
That call for speed matters. Sanctions legislation is only as strong as its enforcement, and the new law's tariff provisions give the administration discretion over how aggressively to wield the tool. Countries that have continued purchasing Russian energy at scale, effectively subsidizing Putin's military operations, now face the prospect of punishing tariffs if Washington chooses to act.
Beyond the Russia provisions, the law extends existing sanctions on Iran's energy and weapons sectors. Those sanctions had been set to expire at the end of this year, and their renewal removes a looming deadline that Tehran could have exploited.
The Iran component of the bill arrives at a moment when the administration has been tightening economic and military pressure on Tehran through multiple channels. Iran's own president has acknowledged that U.S. sanctions and naval pressure are taking a real toll on the country's economy, an admission that underscores why letting those sanctions lapse would have been a strategic gift to a hostile regime.
The broader pressure campaign has also included direct military action. U.S. forces destroyed Iranian oil tankers near Kharg Island after missile attacks on Navy ships, a reminder that the sanctions framework operates alongside kinetic enforcement when American assets come under fire.
The 262, 159 House vote is worth pausing on. That margin means a significant number of Democrats crossed the aisle to support legislation bearing a Republican senator's name and expanding the Trump administration's tariff authority. For a party that has spent years questioning Trump's approach to Russia, voting to hand him more economic leverage over Moscow's energy partners represents a notable shift, or at least an acknowledgment that opposing the bill carried its own political risks.
The broader dynamic of Democrats voting to expand Trump's tariff power and later regretting it has become a recurring pattern in this Congress. Whether the same buyer's remorse follows this vote remains to be seen, but the bipartisan margins in both chambers make it difficult for critics to dismiss the law as a partisan exercise.
The 159 House members who voted against the bill have not been identified by party breakdown in available reporting, leaving open the question of whether opposition came primarily from one side of the aisle or reflected a mix of isolationist and progressive objections.
Naming the legislation after Lindsey Graham was more than a tribute. Graham spent years pushing for tougher sanctions on Russia and making the case, often against resistance within his own party, that economic pressure was the most effective tool short of military force for constraining Putin's ambitions. The late senator visited Ukraine, met with its leaders, and publicly argued that allowing Russia's energy revenue to flow unchecked amounted to financing the war.
The administration's internal strategy on sanctions enforcement, and who drives it, will determine whether the law delivers on its promise or sits on the shelf. The tariff authority is permissive, not mandatory: it allows the administration to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent, but the timing, scope, and targets remain executive decisions.
That design is deliberate. It gives the president maximum flexibility to use the threat of tariffs as a negotiating lever before actually imposing them, precisely the kind of pressure-then-deal framework the administration has favored in other contexts.
Congress did its part with overwhelming votes in both chambers. The law is signed. Now the question is whether the administration moves fast enough to make the countries still buying Russian energy feel the cost, before Putin pockets another year of oil revenue and uses it to keep his war going.
