Trump signs Russia-Iran sanctions law that can put 100 percent tariffs on India and China

President Donald Trump signed H.R. 5334, the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, on 18 September. The White House said the statute “authorizes and expands statutory sanctions, tariffs, and prohibitions on Russia and extends existing sanctions on Iran.” The clause that will travel farthest from Capitol Hill is the tariff trigger aimed at the largest buyers of Russian crude and gas.

Within 30 days of enactment, the president is required to impose duties of up to 100 percent on goods imported from countries that rank among the top five purchasers of Russian oil or natural gas by volume in the previous 12 months. China and India sit in that group. The law also reaches any country that makes new purchases 30 days after enactment, and any country judged to be among the top five helpers of Russian sanctions evasion.

What the statute actually does

The House passed the bill 262-159 on Wednesday. It is named for Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who died in July after years of pressing for a secondary-sanctions package against Moscow. An earlier draft spoke of 500 percent tariffs. The version that reached the president caps the levy at 100 percent and gives the White House room to choose targets, set rates and issue waivers.

The act uses the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as its engine. It authorises sanctions on Russian officials, oligarchs and family members, banks including the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, energy projects such as Yamal LNG and Arctic LNG 1, 2 and 3, and the “shadow fleet” of tankers that move Russian crude outside Western insurance and flag systems. Existing Iran sanctions are extended in the same text.

There is an exception for countries that take less than 15 percent of Russia’s natural gas exports and that can show they are cutting those imports. Aides who worked on the July rewrite said that carve-out could shelter Japan, France, Hungary and Belgium on the gas side. It does not shelter the large crude buyers.

Why the calendar is tight for New Delhi and Beijing

The signing lands days before Trump is due to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Washington. It also lands on an India that has spent two years building a discounted Russian crude book and has already said, as recently as Thursday, that it will keep buying oil through “diversified sourcing.”

The law does not name India or China. That is the design. Officials can compile the top-five list from customs and tanker data, then decide whether a 100 percent tariff, a lower rate, or a waiver serves the next negotiation. Critics of the bill, including some who backed a harder version in 2025, have pointed out that the absence of named countries and of a fixed method for the ranking gives the administration a bargaining chip rather than an automatic penalty.

Apparel exporters in India were already racing this week to close spring 2027 orders for US retailers under a 10 percent tariff. A 100 percent overlay on all goods, not only energy, would be a different order of cost. China faces the same arithmetic on a much larger export book, and on the eve of a summit that was already going to be about artificial intelligence, chips and tariffs.

What still has to happen

The 30-day clock starts from 18 September. The administration must identify the top five crude buyers and the top five gas buyers, decide whether any of them qualify for the 15 percent gas exception, and decide whether any waiver is worth the political cost of looking soft on Moscow. Russia’s war in Ukraine is in its fifth year. Iran is already under a separate wartime sanctions layer.

Thomas Kazakos of the International Chamber of Shipping told the UN Security Council this week that straits cannot become places where commercial ships need permission to pass. The Graham Act is the other half of that argument: if oil still moves, the United States will try to tax the customers. Whether Trump uses the 100 percent authority before he sits down with Xi, or parks it as leverage, is now a policy choice with a statutory deadline attached.