A disclaimer up front: I am not a Russia specialist. I have no particular expertise on the war in Ukraine, and no informed view on whether another round of sanctions on Moscow is necessary, sufficient, or beside the point.
But I do know something about what happens when Congress hands the executive branch, and President Trump in particular, unilateral and discretionary tariff authority. And the tariff title of the Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026—the long-stalled package championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R‑SC), now backed by the White House and more than two dozen senators—deserves a hard look on those grounds alone.
The bill would authorize the president to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five largest purchasers of Russian crude oil, currently China, India, Slovakia, Hungary, and Azerbaijan, and on the five largest buyers of Russian natural gas, which last year were China, France, Belgium, Japan, and Hungary.
To be clear about what’s being proposed: After years of watching the two Trump administrations stretch virtually every trade statute they could find past the breaking point, Congress’ plan is to write the current administration a brand new one—voluntarily and on a bipartisan basis.
Recall the sequence. In April 2025, President Trump unilaterally imposed aggressive tariffs on virtually every country in the world under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump in February. Within days, the administration pivoted to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974—a balance-of-payments provision built for a Bretton Woods world that ceased to exist more than 50 years ago—and taxed a bunch of imports at 10 percent. The Court of International Trade struck that down in May. Now the administration is working through Sections 232 and 301. When one hook breaks, reach for the next. Simply put, this is policy-based evidence-making.
The drafting makes it worse. The bill does not specify where the data identifying the “top five” purchasers come from. Russian energy flows are deliberately murky—intermediaries, transshipment, blended cargoes— and different datasets yield different lists. A statute that turns on a factual finding but declines to specify who makes it or what data are used is not a statute with guardrails. This is an invitation to pick the answer the president wants and dare someone to sue. There’s no sunset, so the duties could sit there in perpetuity, untethered from anything happening in Ukraine. The rate slides anywhere from 0 to 100 percent at the executive branch’s discretion, which is a menu, not a constraint. And the exemption for countries taking “significant steps” to reduce Russian energy dependence leaves the definition of “significant” to the executive.
Asked about the bill, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that the president “wants to be careful about how he deploys this kind of leverage.” Not, this is a narrow instrument for a specific purpose with a defined end point. Peter Harrell, who ran international economics for Biden’s National Security Council and National Economic Council, said it plainly: The president would love this as a tool to threaten 100 percent tariffs on these countries for reasons that have nothing to do with Russia, and the bill lets him, so long as the target bought some Russian oil or natural gas.
This isn’t speculative. The administration is negotiating with India right now. Hand the president authority to threaten New Delhi with a 100 percent tariff, and it is no longer about Russia. It becomes a bargaining chip in every conversation about agricultural access, digital services taxes, and pharmaceutical pricing.
Some Democrats are describing the retreat from the original 500 percent blanket tariff to 100 percent on a possible 10 countries as a win for reining in executive authority. I understand the impulse, but a 100 percent tariff on China, India, and Japan is not a win. Ways and Means Ranking Member Rep. Richard Neal (D‑MA) and Finance Ranking Member Sen. Ron Wyden (D‑OR) have it right: The draft is “a prescription for bedlam and higher tariffs.” That’s an Article I objection, not a partisan one.
If members insist on a tariff mechanism, the fixes are straightforward: Name the data source in statute, impose a hard sunset, require an affirmative joint resolution of approval before duties take effect, bar the authority’s use as leverage in negotiations unrelated to Russian energy, and cap the rate much lower.
These proposed tools are not temporary. Whatever Congress devises becomes a permanent protectionist cudgel for future White House occupants. Congress has spent years painfully discovering how much of its Article I authority it gave away, how little of it courts can claw back, and how challenging it will be for Congress to reclaim.
Policymakers should debate the merits of Russia sanctions, but it would be a colossal mistake to delegate more of Congress’ Article I tariff powers to President Trump.
