The US Senate agreed late Tuesday to begin voting on the long-awaited Lindsey Graham sanctions bill, a package aimed at hobbling Russia’s war effort in Ukraine, according to CNBC. The legislation, named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, combines sanctions and new tariff authority targeting Russian oil sales.
Proponents of the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill say oil is the primary commodity Moscow uses to fund its war machine, and that targeting it now could help Ukraine shift momentum on the battlefield, CNBC reported. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, joined Senators Lindsey Graham’s successor Darline Graham of South Carolina, Katie Britt of Alabama, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Jim Risch of Idaho in announcing on Tuesday that they had reached a deal to combine the Russia sanctions package with sanctions on Iran.
That agreement cleared the way for a first vote to take place Tuesday night, CNBC reported, coinciding with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s presence in Washington for Graham’s funeral services. In a joint statement, the lawmakers said they were “proud to announce an agreement on legislation to stop purchasers of Russian oil and gas from fueling Putin’s war machine and to continue restricting the Iranian regime’s ability to support terrorism and build its nuclear program.”
The senators added that there was “no greater way to honor Senator Graham’s legacy than to move forward with this bipartisan agreement.” According to CNBC, Graham had just returned to Washington from Ukraine when he died, and had played a key role as a White House confidant in persuading President Donald Trump to continue supporting Ukraine after Trump had soured on providing U.S. aid earlier in his second term.
According to the Washington Post, Graham had earlier this month asked Zelensky, during a meeting at the NATO summit in Turkey, to promote the sanctions bill in his subsequent conversation with Trump. Multiple U.S. officials familiar with the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private session, confirmed the request to the Washington Post. The Washington Post described the legislation, in the context of Graham’s advocacy for it, as a bipartisan financial measure intended to curb one of Russia’s main sources of wartime income, underscoring how central the bill had become to Graham’s final months in the Senate.
The bill includes a sweeping set of sanctions targeting Russian officials, oligarchs and their family members, as well as foreign persons, Russian banks and financial institutions, and the Russian shadow fleet, CNBC reported. The legislation also grants the president new authority to impose tariffs on imports from countries that purchase Russian oil or assist in evading Russian sanctions, with those tariffs limited to the top five importers of Russian oil or gas and the top five enablers of sanctions evasion.
The bill would also extend existing sanctions authority restricting funding for Iran’s energy and weapons sectors, a provision CNBC described as a crucial component in securing agreement while the United States continues to be engaged in conflict with Iran. The combination of the Russia and Iran measures into a single package was reported by CNBC as the key development that allowed the long-stalled legislation to finally move toward a floor vote after months of negotiation among lawmakers from both parties. Further background on the Senate’s broader sanctions coordination effort is available through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s official announcement.
No timeline was specified in the available reporting for when a final Senate vote on the combined sanctions package might occur, or when the legislation might be taken up by the House of Representatives. The advancement of the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill comes amid a broader period of active U.S. engagement on sanctions and foreign policy matters, including separate ongoing discussions such as the US-Saudi nuclear deal.
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