US Senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday announced that President Donald Trump has approved a Russian sanctions bill designed to pressure Moscow to end its war with Ukraine. He revealed the development in a post on X, describing it as a pivotal shift in the US approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
What Lindsey Graham said on bipartisan Russia sanctions bill
"After a very productive meeting 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 said in a statement.
In a post on X, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the President cleared the legislation, which will also sanction countries purchasing Russian uranium, after they held a "productive" meeting on Wednesday, adding that it could be put to a vote as early as next week.
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent,” Graham said in a statement, referring to the Russian President Vladimir Putin.
US likely to impose 500% tariffs on countries for buying Russian oil
According to the official website of US Congress, the bill titled "Sanctioning of Russia Act 2025" by Graham seeks to impose several provisions, which includes penalties on individuals and entities including an increase of the rate of duty on all goods and services imported from Russia into the United States to at least 500% relative to the value of such goods and services.
The bill, chiefly written by Graham and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., allows the administration to impose tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russia's oil, gas, uranium and other exports. Doing so is meant to cut off the source of financing for much of Russia's military actions.
Senator Rand Paul slams Trump’s tariff policies
However, Senator Rand Paul attacked the economic logic of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy and stated that the policies raise constitutional concerns.
He said Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners are based on “an economic fallacy” about trade deficits and objected to the president’s move to pursue them without congressional approval during an interview on ABC’s “The Week.”
“Well, tariffs are taxes, and when you put a tax on a business, it’s always passed through as a cost. So, there will be higher prices,” Paul said and argued that the unfettered global trade is enormously beneficial.
He said that the only trade that means anything is the individual who buys something and that is the only real trade. And that by very definition, if it’s voluntary, is mutually beneficial, or the trade doesn’t occur.”
Senator Rand Paul highlights political concerns
Senator Paul also made a political case based on history and said the Republican Party has been the stronger advocate for tariffs in American history, starting with the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln. Paul has surveyed this history and recently told Fox News: “Tariffs have also led to political decimation, when [former President William] McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they [Republicans] lost 50 percent of their seats in the national election. When [Smoot-Hawley, Republican Congressional leaders] put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years. So, they’re not only bad economically, but they’re also bad politically.”
The actions and reactions are coming at a time when the Trump administration is currently trying to finalise a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, now nearly four years old, with special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, as the US president's chief negotiators.
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