A US sanctions bill originally promoted by the late Senator Lindsey Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal has moved close to passage after being stalled in Congress for more than a year. The latest compromise has the support of the White House, Republicans and a significant number of Democrats, The Bell reported on July 18.

The bill has been substantially softened from the original proposal for “hellish sanctions”, which included mandatory tariffs of at least 500% on goods from any country continuing to buy Russian oil, gas, petroleum products or uranium.

Under the revised Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026, tariffs of up to 100% could be imposed on imports from countries that remain among the five largest buyers of Russian oil or gas.

The bill would also allow tariffs of up to 500% on goods imported directly from Russia into the US, although this would have limited economic impact because bilateral trade is already very small.

The White House and senators agreed the compromise text on July  10, and the administration formally confirmed its support three days later.

The bill would require the president to introduce almost the entire sanctions package within 30 days of enactment, regardless of whether Moscow is participating in peace negotiations.

However, Section 115 would give the president very broad authority to suspend virtually any sanction or tariff by notifying Congress in writing that the suspension serves US national interests. Congress would have no power to veto such a temporary suspension.

Sanctions could be terminated permanently only after the president certified that Russia had signed a peace agreement accepted by a “free and independent government of Ukraine”, ended military operations and stopped attempting to overthrow the Ukrainian government.

Congress would then have 30 days to consider the termination and could theoretically oppose it through a joint resolution, although overriding a presidential veto would be difficult.

According to The Bell, the bill gained momentum following Graham’s sudden death on July 11, reportedly from an aortic dissection at the age of 71. By July 16, the new version had more than 60 co-sponsors.

The legislation has also become more attractive to Donald Trump following a  February 20 Supreme Court ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not permit presidents to impose tariffs unilaterally. The bill would provide explicit congressional authority to impose tariffs on countries buying Russian energy.

The Bell says Trump’s language towards Vladimir Putin has hardened. Trump reportedly complained that “a lot of lies” were coming from Putin and that “he is always very nice, but it means nothing”.

Energy and uranium

The bill would prohibit new US investment in Russia’s energy sector and impose sanctions on managers and major shareholders connected to the Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG projects, affecting Novatek and its foreign partners.

It would enforce the existing US prohibition on Russian uranium imports, including Rosatom products, after transitional exemptions expire at the end of 2027.

Foreign companies supplying goods, services or technology that support sanctioned Russian uranium production could also face US sanctions.

The US prohibition would not directly prevent countries such as Hungary, Slovakia or Turkey from using Russian nuclear fuel. Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant reportedly purchases about €70mn of Russian fuel annually.

Oil-price cap and the shadow fleet

The bill would effectively return the US to the Western oil-price-cap coalition alongside Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, New Zealand and the UK.

Ships, insurers, captains and ports violating the coalition’s price cap could be sanctioned.

Inclusion of a vessel on sanctions lists maintained by the UK, EU, G7 or Five Eyes intelligence alliance could become sufficient grounds for corresponding US sanctions.

This would narrow the gaps between different sanctions jurisdictions that Russia’s “shadow fleet” has used to continue transporting oil.

Frozen Russian assets

The bill would support using income generated by frozen Russian assets to finance loans to Ukraine, rather than confiscating the underlying assets directly.

About €210bn of Russian assets are frozen in the EU, mainly at Belgium’s Euroclear.

A proposed European “reparations loan” was blocked by Belgium inDecember 2025 because it wanted other EU members to share the legal risks of possible Russian lawsuits.

Personal sanctions and oligarchs

The legislation would place existing sanctions against senior Russian officials — including the president, prime minister, foreign minister, defence minister and security chiefs — into statute.

This would make the sanctions more difficult for a future president to remove unilaterally.

It would also allow sanctions against Russian oligarchs who had not demonstrated opposition to the war or who continued to benefit from links to the authorities.

Financial system

The Bank of Russia would face at least two measures from a list of possible sanctions, rather than necessarily being subjected to complete asset blocking.

Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank and other state-owned or state-affiliated Russian banks would face a broader package including asset freezes, restrictions under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) and prohibitions on US correspondent accounts.

Foreign banks conducting “significant transactions” with those Russian banks could face secondary sanctions, potentially affecting Chinese, Indian and Turkish institutions involved in Russian energy sales and parallel imports.

The administration would be required to review such foreign banks every 180 days.

The bill would also target operators of international financial-messaging systems that knowingly facilitated sanctions evasion, although it would not require Russian banks to be disconnected completely from systems such as SWIFT.

What is genuinely new

The Bell identifies two principal new instruments.

The first is pressure on buyers rather than sellers: countries buying large amounts of Russian oil or gas could put their entire export trade with the US at risk through tariffs of up to 100%.

The second is broader use of secondary sanctions against foreign banks handling transactions with Russian state banks, threatening the yuan- and rupee-based payment channels Moscow has built to bypass the dollar system.

If China and India reduced purchases, Russia could be forced to offer larger discounts on Urals crude relative to Brent, reducing federal oil and gas revenues.

Buyers might have to obtain more oil from the Middle East, Africa or the US, which could provide some support for global oil prices.

Main limitation

The bill’s practical impact would depend heavily on whether Trump actually used the powers against major countries such as China and India.

Almost all the measures could be suspended by the president on national-interest grounds.

The sanctions might therefore be used selectively as leverage in unrelated trade negotiations rather than consistently to reduce Russia’s war revenues.

The legislation’s central importance is that it would make economic pressure the default background to negotiations. Moscow could no longer delay sanctions merely by agreeing to talks.

It would also distinguish between a temporary “deal with Trump” and a permanent peace settlement accepted by Ukraine: only the latter would allow sanctions to be removed completely.