Ukraine's Next Front is on Capitol Hill

On August 7, the United States Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, paving the way toward the first standalone legislation supporting Ukraine’s war efforts since the start of President Trump’s second term. The bill would codify extensive sanctions on Russian individuals and entities, and empower the president to place tariffs on countries importing Russian energy resources. The vote came less than a month after the bill’s namesake, the late South Carolina senator and a stalwart supporter of Ukraine, passed away. Graham had spent over a year negotiating the bill’s terms with the White House alongside Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, and had finalized an agreement with President Trump shortly before his death. As it heads to a vote in the House of Representatives, the package includes:

• Mandatory sanctions on Russian officials, oligarchs, and supporters of its defense-industrial base, plus codification of roughly 6,800 existing designations.
• Blocking sanctions on Russia’s Central Bank and major state-owned banks, along with foreign banks that do significant business with them.
• Delisting of Russian issuers from U.S. exchanges, a ban on new American investment in Russia’s energy sector, and sanctions on financial messaging systems that help sanctioned banks evade restrictions.
• Sanctions targeting Russia’s shadow fleet of tankers used to evade the price cap on Russian crude.
• A tariff regime imposing tariffs of up to 100 percent on top importers of Russian oil and gas, as well as those countries facilitating its sanctions evasions.

Following an extended August recess that stymied the progress on its passage, the bill has finally been scheduled for a vote this week. However, its fate in the lower chamber is uncertain as a majority of Democrats object to the breadth of tariff authority and discretion the Graham bill hands the president.

The disagreements over this legislation’s design may prove a relatively tame preview of the challenges facing military-financial support for Ukraine. Following the subversion and instability of the last few years of Republican governance, allies of Ukraine on Capitol Hill hope to advance a more ambitious policy for aid in the upcoming Congress. That more ambitious push could be undercut by a lame-duck presidency and widening left flank within the Democratic Party that questions the premise of continued U.S. involvement altogether.

An Overview of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act

The legislation converts years of executive-branch sanctions authority, much of it currently exercised at the president’s discretion under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), into statute through a combination of mandatory sanctions, financial and trade restrictions, and steep secondary tariffs. It is organized around five main components: sanctions on Russian persons and entities, restrictions on Russian financial institutions, measures targeting Russia’s shadow fleet, a tariff regime tied to Russian energy purchases, and a set of exceptions, waivers, and termination conditions that govern how and when the sanctions can be lifted.

On sanctions, the bill mandates action against Russian government officials, oligarchs, and any foreign individuals who support Russia’s defense industrial base or undermine Ukraine’s security or sovereignty. It also codifies roughly 6,800 existing sanctions designations issued by executive order over the past several years. Within 30 days, and upon review every 180 days thereafter, the president must sanction such individuals. Reprimands include visa ineligibility and revocation, and the blocking and prohibition of property in the United States.

On the financial front, the legislation requires blocking sanctions within 30 days on Russia’s Central Bank, Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, and other state-owned financial institutions, along with foreign banks that do significant business with them. However, exceptions are made for loans to Ukraine financed through immobilized Russian sovereign assets or if the Treasury decides it is not in the United States’ economic or foreign policy interests.

The bill also directs the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) to delist Russian state-affiliated issuers from U.S. exchanges, bars new American investment in Russia and in Russia’s energy sector, prohibits the export of U.S. energy products to Russia, and bars U.S. purchases of Russian sovereign debt. It authorizes sanctions on international financial messaging systems, such as SWIFT, that help sanctioned Russian banks evade such restrictions, subject to a waiver if the entity operates under a comparable foreign sanctions regime or has terminated such services. Separately, the bill directs enforcement of the existing ban on Russian uranium exports and sanctions on the leadership of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation.

A significant share of Russia’s oil exports now moves through a “shadow fleet” of tankers with obscured ownership, flags of convenience, and ship-to-ship transfers designed to evade the price cap on Russian crude. The bill directs sanctions against this network of vessels, their facilitators, and the shell companies behind it, and permits the president to identify additional targets based on sanctions or vessel designations already made by the allies and coalition partners.

The Graham bill’s most consequential and controversial pillar is its tariff regime. It authorizes tariffs of up to 100 percent on countries that knowingly make new purchases of Russian oil or gas, that are among the top five importers of Russian oil and gas over the prior year, or that are among the top five facilitators of Russian oil sanctions evasion over the prior year. That list is currently topped by China and India, which together absorb the bulk of Russian seaborne crude that used to go to Europe. Separately, the bill raises tariffs on Russian imports into the United States by up to 500 percent, with particular emphasis on energy and petrochemical products. However, tariffs are waived for countries whose Russian gas imports fall below 15 percent of their total gas imports and that are demonstrably taking steps to reduce that share further, a provision aimed at sparing European allies still weaning themselves off Russian energy.

Full termination of the sanctions regime is conditioned on Russia ending military hostilities and signing and upholding a peace agreement accepted by Ukraine’s government. Any presidential move to terminate a sanction requires a written national-interest certification to Congress, triggers a congressional review period of 30 or 60 days, and can be blocked by a joint resolution of disapproval requiring three-fifths support in the Senate. Finally, as a footnote, the bill extends the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, which would otherwise sunset this year, and tightens sanctions on entities investing in Iran’s energy sector.

Democratic Opposition and State-of-Play in the House

Unlike the Senate, where the bill passed with general Democratic support, House Democratic leadership has not adopted a caucus position, and opposition has mounted among the party’s most senior members. Representative Gregory Meeks, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, opposed the legislation even prior to the Senate vote as “a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs, including on our European allies, that hurt American families.” Meeks joined Representative Richard Neal, ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, and other senior Democrats of congressional economic committees in a joint statement arguing that President Trump already retains sufficient authority to sanction those supporting Russia’s war effort and should exercise such mechanisms rather than conceding more congressional powers. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has stopped short of opposing the bill outright but has echoed his colleagues’ misgivings over handing such authorities to an administration he believes would abuse them.

Underlying the political dispute is a more specific set of technical objections to how the tariff and sanction mechanisms are structured. First, the tariffs apply to a country’s entire trade with the United States without exception for essential consumer goods unrelated to Russia. Current trade statutes with much lower rate ceilings or which tie tariff levels to measurable injuries by the receiving country. The Graham bill, however, allows the president to unilaterally set the initial tariff rate anywhere up to 100 percent without justification. This would, in essence, formalize presidential tariff authority recently denied by the Supreme Court.

On the nations targeted by the tariffs, the bill grants the president and his trade representative discretion in selecting the methodology and evidence to support a determination that a country is a top importer or a sanctions-evasion facilitator. Thus, they could creatively draft the three target lists to contain up to 15 non-duplicate countries evaluated by politicized calculations, and expand the cohort indefinitely every six months without being required to remove those countries already listed.

The legislation does not provide recourse for affected countries or Congress to check such punitive actions. The bill outlines no mechanism for importers, exporters, or foreign governments to contest the data or reasoning behind a tariff determination, and Congress only retains a role in blocking the termination of sanctions. Meanwhile, the president can exempt any country, sector, or company from the tariffs or sanctions by asserting, with minimal public justification, that doing so serves the national interest.

This technical critique corresponds to the first of two reasons for House Democratic to hold out, in that their impassioned support for Ukraine is bounded by their unwillingness to embolden the executive, particularly President Trump. Beyond a narrow concern over the president’s use of the mechanisms laid out in this particular legislation, Democrats fear that this transfer of congressional authority would create legal precedent, the previous absence of which was central in the Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump case that overturned the president’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. Representative Brad Schneider, who leads the centrist New Democrat Coalition, conveyed this reservation to lend “the executive branch more authority that was rightly placed with the legislative branch a very long time ago.” Rather than a split over the necessity to strengthen Ukraine’s defensive efforts, the caucus—particularly its most senior and institutionally cautious members—is divided over its willingness to further centralize executive power in order to do so.

The second argument concerns not the scope of the authority but the expected pattern of its use, with Democrats anticipating the administration adopting a minimalist use of sanctions and maximalist application of tariffs. Despite more hawkish rhetoric on Russia in recent months, the administration has sanctioned only a small number of Russian companies since taking office, a fraction of the sanctions issued since the start of the full-scale invasion. Combined with a waiver structure that allows the president to exempt Russian entities or individuals with minimal justification or oversight, critics argue that the tariff authority is the provision most likely to be used given the administration’s demonstrated approach to trade policy. Meeks has said that a reluctant President Trump would rather “waive sanctions on Russia than impose new ones,” encompassing the view that, even if Democrats agreed to transfer such authorities, the sacrifice of the congressional powers would not be equivalent in its boost to Ukraine.

Democratic critics have pointed to a separate piece of legislation, the House-passed Ukraine Support Act, as closer to their preference for extended security assistance and intelligence-sharing with Ukraine. The bill would establish a reconstruction fund and impose a more rigid set of Russian sanctions, though it has not been considered in the upper chamber. Senate Democrats separately attempted to reshape the tariff authority within the Graham bill itself before final passage. Senator Raphael Warnock introduced three amendments during floor consideration along with Republican counterparts to automatically terminate tariffs on a country once it no longer appeared on any of the three target lists, require periodic congressional approval for tariffs, and require the U.S. Trade Representative to follow a formal investigative and public-comment process before imposing tariffs. A separate amendment from Senators Rand Paul, a libertarian Republican, and Ron Wyden to strike the tariff provisions entirely was rejected.

Proponents of the legislation, including some Democrats, argue that these objections rest on a maximalist reading of discretionary authority that the administration has already signaled it does not intend to exercise as broadly as critics fear. During the Senate’s consideration, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer sent Warnock a written commitment to follow the tariff provisions as enacted, which Warnock cited in dropping his push for a vote on his own amendments to restrict the tariff use. Representative Steny Hoyer, a leading Democrat in support of the Graham bill, has conceded the legislation’s imperfections and is among the House version’s 10 Democratic cosponsors. Representative Don Bacon, a moderate and retiring Republican, made a similar case in accusing some members of letting “perfection be the enemy of good.” Proponents are arguing against further delay as Ukraine suffers sustained missile offensives heading into another winter where Russia is expected to mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops shortly after State Duma elections scheduled for late September.

Outlook for Ukraine Policy Heading into the 120th Congress

Regardless of the outcome of this week’s vote, these conflicts point to a broader problem awaiting Ukraine-related legislation in the next Congress, as foreshadowed in the White House’s posture toward this Congress’s two competing bills. President Trump threatened to veto the Ukraine Support Act, arguing it would “tie [his] hands by mandating a wide-ranging U.S. response to the Russia-Ukraine war while adding hundreds of millions in unfunded authorizations.” The Graham bill received the administration’s backing in part because it does the opposite in expanding the president’s own discretion over whether and how to act, as well as President Trump’s sympathy over the passing of Senator Graham that is likely to expire after losing his control of Congress in the midterms.

Despite a desire by most Democrats to yield their projected majority in the 120th Congress toward a more ambitious policy to support Ukraine, the caucus will also have to contend with internal fracturing that would undermine such efforts. While the progressive Representative Ilhan Omar was the lone Democrat to vote against the Ukraine Support Act, the party’s recent primary cycle produced a larger cohort of democratic socialist nominees. Among the half-dozen candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) projected to win a seat in the 120th Congress is Darializa Avila Chevalier. She has summarized her foreign policy views as a preference “to have our tax dollars come back home to invest in our babies here and not in bombs abroad,” and drew scrutiny during her campaign for a since-deleted 2022 social media post suggesting the United States bore some responsibility for Russia’s invasion because of its post-Cold War “bullying” of Moscow. Chevalier is part of a broader slate from an organization that advocates against interventionism and military aid to Ukraine that would “only further exacerbate the war” which they blame in part to the “aggressive approach of [NATO and] Western nations.” Regardless of any ideological moderation or political disciplining, this cohort’s numbers alone signal that Democratic leadership will have a larger and more vocal flank to manage on any future Ukraine legislation, complicating their hopes of a productive majority.

That dynamic is compounded by a public opinion picture that offers Ukraine’s remaining advocates little additional leverage. Polling has shown a gradual softening in American support for continued U.S. involvement, and much of the legislative momentum behind Ukraine assistance to date has come from a relatively small cohort of transatlanticist politicians willing to spend political capital on an issue outside of constituent priorities. That pool is also dwindling, with the departure of Hoyer, Bacon, McCaul, and others in the next Congress—joined by the absence of Graham and upcoming retirement of a near-dozen like-minded Senate colleagues—opening the question of how much leadership and incentive for such efforts remain as the war continues. Absent this stewardship and unanimity, the burden increasingly falls on Ukraine’s battlefield momentum and public narratives to sustain its American coalition.