Trump signs H.R. 5334, arming the executive branch with statutory authority to impose duties of up to 100 percent on the five largest buyers of Russian crude and gas, and a 500 percent wall against Russian goods, while leaving every operative decision to his own discretion
WASHINGTON, SEPT. 19, 2026
President Donald Trump signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 into law on Friday, September 18, the White House confirmed in a brief statement, creating for the first time a statutory tariff authority aimed squarely at third countries that continue to purchase Russian energy.
The White House announcement described H.R. 5334 as legislation that authorizes and expands statutory sanctions, tariffs, and prohibitions on Russia and extends existing sanctions on Iran. The measure is named for the late South Carolina senator who spent years pressing for tougher economic pressure on Moscow. It cleared the Senate by 86 to 11 in August and passed the House of Representatives by 262 to 159 on September 16, a margin that trade lawyers noted is comfortably above the threshold required to override a veto.
For the U.S. trade bar, the law is significant less for what it does than for what it makes possible. The president gains an explicit congressional grant of authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on goods from countries falling within specified categories tied to Russian energy purchases and sanctions circumvention, plus a 500 percent tariff aimed at U.S. imports from Russia itself. That authority is durable in a way the emergency powers tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court in February were not, because it comes from a statute Congress passed for this specific purpose rather than from a general delegation being stretched to cover tariffs.
What the statute actually does
The law’s central tariff provision targets a narrowly drawn group. It reaches countries that ranked among the five largest purchasers of Russian crude oil or natural gas by total volume during the twelve months preceding enactment, and separately reaches countries identified as major facilitators of Russian sanctions evasion, as well as those that knowingly make new purchases or assist Moscow in circumventing existing restrictions.
Crucially, the statute does not name any country. As the Business Today account of the Global Trade Research Initiative analysis put it, the law does not name specific countries or clearly define how the top five lists will be determined, giving the administration significant discretion in deciding which countries could face tariffs. India and China, the two largest buyers of discounted Russian crude since 2022, are the obvious candidates and were named as such by multiple analysts within hours of the signing.
The administration is required to reassess the covered countries every 180 days, according to Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty’s account of the provisions, which creates a recurring decision point rather than a single determination.
The law reaches well beyond tariffs. It targets Russia’s shadow fleet, the tankers and associated networks used to move Russian energy outside sanctioned channels, and it can capture vessel owners, operators, managers, insurers and other participants in covered activity. It contains provisions aimed at major Russian liquefied natural gas projects, including the Yamal and Arctic LNG developments. It extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 through 2031.
It also contains a provision that has drawn less attention but that Luke Coffey of the Hudson Institute flagged to RFE/RL as potentially consequential: a restriction on U.S. businesses pursuing new deals or investments in Russia, or with Russian entities, until there is a peace agreement acceptable to Ukraine. Coffey said that provision could matter because some political and business interests in Washington have been waiting for an opportunity to restore commercial ties with Moscow.
Finally, and decisively, the law preserves presidential discretion. Trump may waive sanctions, restrictions or duties where he determines that doing so serves the national interest, provided he explains the decision to Congress.
The timetable
Under the GTRI reading reported by Business Today, the law takes effect within 30 days of enactment. During that window the U.S. Trade Representative is to identify countries that could be targeted and recommend tariff rates. Countries so identified would ordinarily have 180 days to reduce Russian energy purchases or to negotiate with Washington, though the analysis noted that the president could shorten that period.
That sequencing is the single most important fact for exporters in affected countries and for U.S. importers who source from them. It means that October brings a USTR identification exercise, not a tariff. It means that the earliest plausible date for duties to bite, absent an acceleration, falls well into 2027. And it means that the intervening period is, by design, a negotiating window.
Reaction: qualified welcome, deep skepticism about follow through
Reaction in Washington and Kyiv converged on a single theme. The law’s effect depends entirely on whether the administration uses it.
Daniel Fried, a former State Department sanctions coordinator, told RFE/RL on September 18 that the signing was significant but that the president had let the moment pass without a message. It is good that President Trump signed the bill into law, Fried said. But the lack of a public statement means that he has missed a chance to send a message to Putin that he needs to end the war. The White House released only its standard one line notice of bills signed, with no accompanying remarks.
Coffey emphasized symbolism and timing. One of the most important aspects of this new legislation is its symbolism and timing, he told RFE/RL, pointing to the bipartisan margins and in particular to Republican lawmakers who had previously been skeptical of continued U.S. involvement in Ukraine. He cautioned against expecting rapid action. I would not expect major new sanctions or tariffs to be implemented overnight as a result of this legislation, Coffey said, while noting that the law’s codification of many existing sanctions is itself meaningful, since codified measures are harder to lift quietly.
Kerri Bitsoff, a former senior Treasury official who worked at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, called the bipartisan vote an encouraging signal for Ukraine and said it showed Congress still backs pressure on Putin across party lines. But her assessment of the tariff tool was pointed. She noted that tariffs have proved difficult to use against major purchasers of Russian energy, citing China’s response to U.S. tariffs in April 2025, when Beijing retaliated with its own duties and restricted rare earth exports. It will take resolve from the President and the American public to stick to the threat, Bitsoff said.
She also offered a concrete test of intent. There has not been movement from Treasury on the Russia sanctions already in place in almost eleven months, she said. Enforcement on those from Treasury will be a good indication of whether Trump will use this new authority or let it sit.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Trump and members of Congress, invoking Graham’s advocacy. 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, Zelenskyy said. He urged the administration to implement the law fully and swiftly, adding that the best way to honor Graham’s memory would be to do so.
India reacts first and hardest
The sharpest commercial response came not from Washington or Moscow but from New Delhi.
The Global Trade Research Initiative, an Indian trade policy think tank, published an assessment within a day arguing that the legislation puts India and China at direct risk. GTRI framed the significance for India in terms of a gap: the 18 percent tariff rate referred to in the February 6 joint statement between the two governments, against the new law’s provision allowing rates of up to 100 percent.
That February agreement had been presented on both sides as a reset. Announced by Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it cut U.S. reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods to 18 percent from 25 percent, following a period in which duties on Indian goods had reached 50 percent. Under the framework, India committed to eliminate or reduce tariffs on all U.S. industrial goods and on a wide range of American food and agricultural products, and indicated an intent to purchase more than 500 billion dollars of U.S. energy, information and communications technology, coal and other products. Trump also said at the time that India was reducing its purchases of Russian oil, which he cited in removing a punitive 25 percent duty.
GTRI’s counsel to New Delhi was to continue buying Russian crude while it remains commercially competitive and to negotiate firmly, warning against exchanging long term energy interests for temporary tariff relief. The think tank cautioned that even reducing Russian oil purchases or concluding a bilateral trade agreement might not prevent future U.S. action under Section 301, sectoral tariffs or other trade laws. It also stressed that the 100 percent figure is a ceiling permitted by statute, not a rate that has been imposed, and that the actual impact will depend on rates, product coverage and implementation schedule.
Indian industry moved quickly. The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry issued a statement on September 19 warning that additional duties would be very difficult for its members to absorb. Any additional tariffs under this Act will be very difficult to absorb for the MSME dominated Indian textile and apparel sector already under stress due to several factors, including the continuing turmoil in West Asia, CITI Chairman Ashwin Chandran said.
Chandran argued that the United States remains the industry’s most significant overseas market and that recently concluded trade agreements elsewhere cannot substitute for it. The FTAs offer a lot of potential, but the gains from those are not automatic for exporters and will take time to materialise, he said, referring to the India and United Kingdom comprehensive economic and trade agreement that took effect on July 15, 2026, and to an India and EU agreement expected to become operational next year. CITI called for urgent government engagement with Washington and described a fair, balanced and equitable bilateral trade agreement as an immediate requirement.
The association’s own export data underline the sensitivity. In August 2026, India’s combined textile and apparel exports rose 6.39 percent year on year in dollar terms, with textiles up 13.03 percent but apparel down 2.74 percent. For April through August 2026, textile exports grew 6.94 percent while apparel exports fell 9.10 percent, leaving cumulative shipments marginally lower by 0.24 percent against the prior year. Apparel is the segment most exposed to U.S. tariff changes and the segment already contracting.
The economics, and the domestic constraint
The reason experienced observers doubt rapid implementation is arithmetic rather than politics.
A 100 percent tariff on goods from India or China would not principally punish Moscow. It would raise landed costs for American importers of apparel, footwear, generic pharmaceuticals, electronics, furniture and a long list of household goods, in the middle of an election year. Analysts cited by Reuters and relayed in the Indian coverage said Washington may be reluctant to impose measures that could push up U.S. consumer and energy prices ahead of the November midterm elections.
The energy channel compounds the problem. Curtailing Indian and Chinese purchases of Russian crude, if successful, would remove a substantial volume of discounted barrels from the market and tighten global supply at a moment when Middle East disruption is already elevating prices. The policy is designed to reduce Russian revenue. One mechanism by which it could do so is lower volumes. Another is higher world prices, which would partly offset the revenue loss to Moscow while raising costs for American consumers.
Against that, the aggregate tariff baseline is already historically elevated. The Penn Wharton Budget Model put the average effective U.S. tariff rate at 6.7 percent as of July 2026, with China at 22.8 percent. The Tax Foundation estimates a 7.2 percent effective rate for calendar 2026, an applied rate of 11.8 percent against 1.5 percent in 2022, and roughly 1.4 trillion dollars in cumulative revenue over 2026 to 2035. Adding a 100 percent layer on two of the largest supplier countries would be a category change rather than an increment.
What U.S. importers should do
Recognize what is and is not in force. Nothing changed for any entry filed today. The statute creates authority and a process. Companies that reprice on the basis of the headline number will have repriced on a ceiling that may never be reached.
Map India and China exposure at the HTS level now. The USTR identification exercise runs during the next 30 days. Companies that already know which lines, volumes and landed costs are at risk will be able to file meaningful comments and make sourcing decisions during the window. Companies that start mapping after a determination is published will be reacting.
Participate in the process. Unlike the emergency powers tariffs, this authority is expected to operate through a USTR recommendation process. That process has historically accepted written submissions. Importers with concentrated exposure, and particularly those who can document that no alternative source exists at scale, have a genuine interest in making that record.
Watch for waivers, not just impositions. The president’s waiver authority, which requires only a national interest determination and an explanation to Congress, means that country specific relief is available and will likely be used as a negotiating currency. Companies should expect an environment of differentiated country outcomes rather than uniform application.
Plan sourcing shifts that make sense on other grounds too. The most durable response to a contingent 100 percent tariff is supplier diversification that a company would want regardless. Shifting volume to Vietnam, Bangladesh, Mexico or domestic suppliers purely to dodge a duty that may never arrive is an expensive bet. Shifting volume because it improves lead times, reduces concentration risk and happens also to reduce tariff exposure is a defensible decision under either outcome.
Exporters should prepare for retaliation asymmetry. If duties are eventually imposed on China, the retaliation playbook is well established: agricultural purchases, rare earth and critical mineral export controls, and regulatory pressure on U.S. firms operating in China. If duties are imposed on India, the response is likely to be more measured, given New Delhi’s interest in completing a bilateral agreement, but U.S. agricultural and energy exporters who benefited from the February framework would be the natural pressure points.
Where this sits in the broader tariff architecture
The Graham Act arrives into a tariff system that has been rebuilt twice in eight months, and its place in that architecture is worth stating plainly.
The first structure, built during 2025 and early 2026, rested on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and produced the country specific reciprocal duties. The Supreme Court dismantled it on February 20, 2026, holding that the statute does not authorize presidential tariff setting. The consequences are still being processed. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stood up a consolidated refund system, with more than 95 billion dollars queued for refund and more than 40 billion dollars expected to have been disbursed by the end of June, while the government pursues an appeal at the Federal Circuit contesting the Court of International Trade’s authority to compel refunds on liquidated entries.
The second structure, built since February, rests on sectoral and conduct based authorities. Section 232 now covers steel, aluminum, copper, patented pharmaceuticals and active ingredients, and unmanned aircraft systems, with the pharmaceutical rates changing for most importers on September 29 and the drone duties having taken effect on September 3. Section 301 now covers forced labor enforcement failures across sixty economies, with duties in force since July 24, and has pending excess capacity proceedings against more than a dozen major partners. Section 338, dormant for the better part of a century, has been revived against Canada.
The Graham Act adds a third category: a tariff authority granted by Congress for an explicitly foreign policy purpose, targeting third countries for their commercial relationships with a fourth. That is a structurally different instrument from the others. It is not about the imported product, the exporting industry or the practices of the exporting country’s own market. It is about whom that country buys oil from.
For compliance functions, the practical consequence is that country of origin now carries a new dimension of risk that has nothing to do with the goods themselves. A supplier in a country that appears on a USTR list because of its energy procurement decisions becomes a liability irrespective of its own conduct, its labor practices or its production costs. That is a form of exposure most sourcing organizations have not previously had to model.
The test ahead
The Lindsey O. Graham Act converts a foreign policy objective into a trade instrument, and in doing so hands the executive branch a tool that is unusually broad in its ceiling and unusually narrow in its targeting. Whether it becomes a defining feature of the tariff landscape or a statute that sits unused depends on decisions that will be made over the next several months by a president who signed it without comment.
Bitsoff’s test is the one worth adopting. Enforcement of the sanctions already on the books is the leading indicator. If Treasury begins moving on measures that have sat static for nearly a year, the new tariff authority is likely to be exercised. If it does not, the law will function as what Coffey called it: significant symbolism, codifying existing pressure and reserving new pressure for a moment of the president’s choosing.
For American importers, that ambiguity is the operating condition. It has been the operating condition all year.