As one of its last acts before the midterm elections, the House passed a bill on Wednesday giving President Donald Trump new authority to impose sanctions and tariffs against Russia and its trading partners.
In a 262-159 vote, 203 Republicans, 58 Democrats and one independent supported the bill — which was named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — while seven Republicans and 152 Democrats opposed the bill.
After Graham’s death in July, lawmakers in both parties worked to revive and fast-track the legislation in his honor, with the bill passing the Senate 86-11 on Aug. 7. The measure will now head to the president’s desk, where he’s expected to sign it into law.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 would impose new sanctions on Russian officials and entities, including Moscow’s financial institutions, energy projects, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The legislation also would give Trump the authority to impose up to 100% tariffs on countries that purchase a significant amount of Russian oil and gas, and it would ban U.S. individuals from purchasing Russian sovereign debt.
While the Senate vote was overwhelming, the measure faced considerably more resistance in the House — in large part because Democratic leaders opposed giving Trump more authority over tariffs.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., expressed strong concern that the legislation ceded too much power to Trump, particularly because the president could waive the sanctions.
For many Democrats, that provision was a step too far.
“Why in the world would this Congress or the People’s House give this president unfettered authority to visit more tariffs on the world that will have an adverse economic impact on the American people? I can’t do it,” Jeffries said.
Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he “regrettably” opposed the bill because, in his opinion, it didn’t meet the moment.
“It does not give the Ukrainians what they need at this moment,” Meeks said. “They need to have the munitions to protect themselves and continue to do what they’re doing to preserve their own country and democracy.”
Meeks released a statement last week alongside Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the top Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., to sound the alarm on the provision to expand presidential tariff authorities. The trio said the bill was “unacceptable” and posed “more harm than good.”
“We continue to seek bicameral, bipartisan negotiations to craft a bill that can win strong support in both chambers and deliver on our promise to Ukraine,” they said.
“Regret” remained a theme as lawmakers voiced concerns about the bill.
“If this bill passes, I predict Ukraine’s supporters will regret it,” Beyer said on the House floor. “Yes, they will be able to say ‘we stood with Ukraine’ in the immediate aftermath. But when Donald Trump hits our allies with new tariffs and waives sanctions on Russia, the propaganda victory for Putin will be lasting — and the damage will be embedded in U.S. law.”
But the Democratic opposition was complicated by a pair of lawmakers who broke with their party earlier in the week to help advance the legislation.
As Republicans struggled on Tuesday to approve a procedural resolution setting up consideration of the bill on the floor, two Democrats crossed party lines to bail out the GOP.
Rep. Marie Glusenkamp Perez, a centrist Democrat from Washington, and Rep. Jared Golden, a retiring Democrat from Maine, both joined Republicans to advance a rule that would have otherwise gone down on the House floor. Without their votes, GOP leaders would have been stymied on the legislation and would have had to figure out another path for the bill.
Instead, the rule was adopted and Republicans were able to bring the legislation to the floor.
Glusenkamp Perez chalked her vote up to a desire to see the Russia sanctions bill pass.
“I’m proud to represent one of the largest Ukrainian communities in America — people who have lost fathers, mothers, sons and daughters in the fight to defeat fascism,” Glusenkamp Perez wrote in a statement on X. “My vote today gets us one step closer to enacting these sanctions into law and I look forward to voting tomorrow to cut off the flow of Russian oil money fueling this war.”
Despite the internal divisions, the bill’s passage is the bookend of a long effort to place more sanctions on Moscow, as the war between Russia and Ukraine stretches on. (Wednesday marked 1,665 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion.)
“Lindsey Graham once said that this bill would be his greatest achievement,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Wednesday. “I can think of no better way, Mr. Speaker, to honor his life and his legacy than by passing these tough sanctions, which will force Mr. Putin to the negotiating table.”
“Evil is on the march,” he continued. “History is calling. And now is the time to act.”
Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was a vocal advocate for the legislation. When he visited Washington in July for Graham’s funeral, he met with a bipartisan group of senators. He watched the Senate vote from the gallery, and he lauded the legislation as a key moment in his goal of peace.
“This is the first step toward implementing Lindsey’s plans, and certainly a step toward peace,” Zelensky said.
On Wednesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who was instrumental in getting the legislation over the finish line, said Zelensky sees the bill as “a priority.”
“He expressed to me face to face when I met with him just a couple of weeks ago, it is at the very top of the priorities that he thinks will make a difference, enabling them to get through this winter, stopping the flow of revenue to Putin’s war machine,” Blumenthal told reporters.
“It will be a gigantic message to Vladimir Putin that whatever the weakness on the part of this administration toward Ukraine, the Congress and the people of the United States stand strongly behind the Ukrainian battle against Putin’s murderous assault,” he said.
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