Russia sanctions bill may increase US tariffs on India to 500%! What does Lindsey Graham's proposal say?

US President Donald Trump is now on board with the bipartisan Russia Sanctions Bill floated by Senator Lindsey Graham, greenlighting a route that could see the US tariffs on India shoot up to an unbelievable 500% from the already-high 50% rates.

Here is everything you need to know about the Sanctioning Russia Act, 2025, a bill that was floated by Graham to cripple Moscow economically.

What is the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025?

The Russia sanctions bill, titled Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, allows the administration to impose tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries that purchase Russia’s oil, gas, uranium and other exports. This includes countries like India and China, which face a 500% tariff if the bill is cleared.

The purpose of the bill is to cripple Moscow further economically to put an end to its war in Ukraine, according to the Trump administration.

What does the Russia sanctions bill say?

1. Graham and Democrat Richard Blumenthal have introduced the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025, which would impose secondary tariffs and sanctions on “countries that continue to fund Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine”.

2. The legislation has proposed a 500% tariff on secondary purchase and reselling of Russian oil and one that almost every single member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has co-sponsored. “The President must increase 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 reads.

3. “The President must increase the rate of duty on all goods and services imported into the United States from countries that knowingly engage in the exchange of Russian-origin uranium and petroleum products to at least 500% relative to the value of such goods and services," it says.

4. “The Department of the Treasury must impose property-blocking sanctions on any financial institution organised under Russian law and owned wholly or partly by Russia, and any financial institution that engages in transactions with those entities.”

5. A version of the bill released in April 2025 has a provision for the President to “waive the 500% tariffs for a period of up to 180 days with respect to a country, good or service if he determines it is in the national interest of the United States”.

What did Lindsey Graham say?

US Senator Lindsey Graham on Wednesday said that the legislation would give the White House "tremendous leverage" against countries like China, India and Brazil to make them stop buying Russian oil.

The development on the Russia sanctions bill comes close on the heels of the US seizing a Russian-flagged oil tanker, named the Marinera, as it continues to negotiate a deal with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.

“After a very productive meeting today 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 post on X.

How does the Russia sanctions bill affect India?

If the Russia sanctions bill is passed by the United States, it may not have a great impact on India. New Delhi, which already pays 50% Trump tariffs to the US on most of its exports, may be faced with a 500% tariff on whatever items the administration may determine at that time.

“President Trump and his team have made a powerful move, implementing a new approach to end this bloodbath between Russia and Ukraine...However, the ultimate hammer to bring about the end of this war will be tariffs against countries, like China, India and Brazil, that prop up Putin’s war machine by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas,” a joint statement by Graham and Blumenthal, who also wrote the bill, had said last year.

India has been a major buyer of Russian oil and is already facing an additional 25% US tariffs for the same since August 2025, taking the total tariff to 50%.

A 10-fold increase to this already high export duty may translate into harm for the country's exporters, who are already seeing a slowdown across sectors.

The bill, if enacted, may also pose a hurdle to India-US ties as the countries are still negotiating to strike a trade deal.

Earlier, Donald Trump had said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was unhappy about the US tariffs on India.

“They (India) wanted to make me happy, basically. (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi is a very good man; he is a good guy. He knew I was not happy, and it was important to make me happy. They do trade and we can raise tariffs on them very quickly. It would be very bad for them,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One.