Congress Moves to Arm Trump With a New Tariff Cannon
The numbers come first. In an 86-to-11 vote, the Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 on Friday. The House is expected to approve the bill with similar bipartisan support next month.
The legislation targets Russian President Vladimir Putin, senior Kremlin officials, and Russia's energy sector. Its core trade provision would allow President Trump to impose tariffs as high as 100% on the top five importers of Russian oil and gas — a list that could include the European Union, South Korea, Japan, China, and India.
The president would also hold the authority to issue waivers whenever he deems it 'in the national interest of the United States,' leaving the final rate entirely at his discretion.
Why This Bill Survives Where Others Have Not
The new authority matters precisely because earlier tariff moves have run into legal walls. The Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose his 'Liberation Day' tariffs, upholding a series of lower-court rulings. He subsequently pivoted to Section 122 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 for levies of 10% to 12.5% on 60 trading partners — duties that are themselves expected to face new lawsuits.
The Russia sanctions bill, by contrast, provides more open-ended statutory authority and would likely be harder to challenge in court.
The Ambiguity Concern
Cato Institute scholars Clark Packard and Scott Lincicome, writing in a Washington Post op-ed, warned that 'the Russia bill is riddled with the same ambiguity the president has exploited in these other laws.' They noted the bill does not specify what data will determine which countries qualify as the five largest importers of Russian energy. While the tariff authority expires in five years, the bill does not say how long the tariffs themselves last.
Exemptions are not automatic, either. Allies must be found by the U.S. Trade Representative to have taken 'significant steps' to reduce their Russian energy imports before any relief is granted.
'Trump could direct the trade representative to set the tariff rate at 100% for one buyer of Russian energy and zero for another,' Packard and Lincicome wrote. 'That unchecked authority gives Trump leverage in disputes unrelated to Ukraine.'
For instance, the threat of a new 100% tariff on India could become a bargaining chip in negotiations over farm exports, digital taxes, or drug prices. A fresh 100% levy on China could also disturb the fragile trade truce the world's two largest economies have maintained for the past year.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted against the bill, arguing on the Senate floor that it 'will deliberately make American families poorer by increasing tariffs, which are nothing but a tax on imported goods.' Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., ultimately voted yes after receiving a written promise from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that tariffs would be lifted once countries are no longer deemed top buyers of Russian energy.
The Deeper Story: Congress and the Guardrails It Removed
Packard and Lincicome place the structural blame squarely on Capitol Hill. 'For more than half a century, Congress has delegated broad tariff powers to the president with few limitations,' they wrote. 'If the president has run wild, it's only because lawmakers took away the guardrails.'
From a free-enterprise standpoint, that diagnosis is the most consequential line in the entire debate. Tariff authority concentrated in a single executive — however well-intentioned the Ukraine rationale — is a tax lever that can be aimed at any trading partner, for any reason, at any moment. The market already knows this. Capital rewards clear rules, and a 100% tariff hanging over five of America's largest trade relationships is anything but clear. Whatever leverage the bill creates against Putin, the cost of that ambiguity will be priced by importers, manufacturers, and consumers long before any waiver is granted.
