Trump Will Support Russia Sanctions Bill as It Advances in Congress: Sen. Graham

Sen. Lindsey Graham has been working on a bipartisan bill to target nations still trading with Moscow for months.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Capitol Hill in Washington on Jan. 7, 2026. Madalina Kilroy/The Epoch Times

President Donald Trump will support a bipartisan sanctions bill targeting nations still doing business with Russia moving forward in Congress, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Jan. 7.

The veteran South Carolina senator said the legislation could be put to a vote as early as next week.

“After a very productive meeting today with President Trump on a variety of issues, he greenlit the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that I have been working on for months with Senator Blumenthal and many others,” Graham wrote on X.

“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent.”

He said that the bill would allow Trump to “punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin’s war machine” and give the president the leverage against nations such as China, India, and Brazil “to incentivize them to stop buying the cheap Russian oil that provides the financing for Putin’s bloodbath against Ukraine.”

Graham has been working on the bill with lawmakers from both parties for months and said that he was looking forward to a “strong bipartisan vote” on the legislation.

Leaders in the Senate and House have held off bringing the legislation to a vote as Trump has preferred to impose tariffs on goods imported from India, the world’s second-leading buyer of Russian oil after China.

The bill, first submitted by Graham in April, proposes high tariffs on Russia and its trading partners.

According to the summary of the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, the United States could impose at least a 500 percent tariff on goods and services imported from Russia and at least 500 percent tariffs on goods and services imported from countries “that knowingly engage in the exchange of Russian-origin uranium and petroleum products.”

The administration has already imposed secondary tariffs as deterrents to trade with Russia. On Aug. 6, Trump introduced steep penalties on India, doubling import tariffs on the South Asian country to 50 percent, linking the increase to the purchase of Russian oil.

On Oct. 22, the Trump administration announced tougher sanctions on Moscow, including on Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, in an effort to affect the country’s ability to fund the war with Ukraine.

Negotiations to bring the war to an end have picked up steam in recent months, with numerous negotiations taking place between the United States and Kyiv and separately with Moscow.

After an initial 28-point plan was criticized by Ukraine and its European allies for being too favorable to Russia, a second 20-point plan was put forward following discussions between Washington and Kyiv.

However, Moscow has remained unreceptive to that iteration of the deal.

The most recent discussions took place earlier this week in Paris, France, during which the United States backed security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a cease-fire with Russia.

The pledge came during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Ukraine’s allies in Paris on Jan. 6 to discuss their contributions to future post-war security guarantees for Kyiv.

Zelenskyy was joined by more than 27 leaders in the French capital, along with Washington’s top negotiators—U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—as part of an effort to construct a joint Ukrainian, European, and U.S. position that could be put to Moscow.

Following the summit, Witkoff said that Trump “strongly stands behind security protocols.”

“Those security protocols are meant to ... deter any attacks, any further attacks in Ukraine, and ... if there are any attacks, they’re meant to defend, and they will do both. They are as strong as anyone has ever seen,” Witkoff, who has led talks with Russia, said at a joint press conference with French, German, British, and Ukrainian leaders.