NEW YORK: US President Donald Trump has "greenlit" a sanctions bill that could impose 500 per cent tariffs on countries buying Russian oil, giving him "tremendous leverage" against countries like China and India to stop them from purchasing cheap oil from Moscow.
Senator Lindsey Graham said he had a "very productive meeting" with Trump at the White House on Wednesday, during which the President "greenlit" the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that has been in the works for months.
“This will be well-timed, as Ukraine is making concessions for peace, and Putin is all talk, continuing to kill the innocent. This bill will allow President Trump to punish those countries who buy cheap Russian oil, fuelling Putin’s war machine,” Graham said in a post on X on Wednesday.
“This bill would give President Trump tremendous leverage against countries like China, India and Brazil to incentivise them to stop buying the cheap Russian oil that provides the financing for Putin’s bloodbath against Ukraine,” he said.
Graham said he looks forward to a “strong” bipartisan vote on the bill, “hopefully as early as next week.”
Trump has imposed 50 per cent tariffs on India, among the highest in the world, including 25 per cent levies for its purchases of Russian energy.
Graham and 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.”
The legislation has proposed a 500 per cent 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.
“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 had said last year.
Earlier this week, Graham said that Indian Ambassador to the US Vinay Kwatra informed him about New Delhi reducing its purchases of Russian oil and asked him to convey to President Trump to “relieve the tariff” imposed on India.
Graham, accompanying Trump on Air Force One on Sunday, was talking about his tariff bill.
He said that to end the Russia-Ukraine conflict, pressure must be put on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s customers. Trump said that the sanctions are hurting Russia very badly and then mentioned India.
Graham then said that the US put a 25 per cent tariff on India for buying Russian oil.
“This stuff works...but if you are buying cheap Russian oil, keeping Putin's war machine going, we are trying to give the President the ability to make that a hard choice by tariffs. I really do believe that what he (Trump) did with India is the chief reason India is now buying substantially less Russian oil,” Graham said.
Kwatra last month hosted US Senators, including Graham, Blumenthal, Sheldon Whitehouse, Peter Welch, Dan Sullivan and Markwayne Mullin at India House, the official residence of the Ambassador of India in Washington, DC.
“Had fruitful conversations on the India-US partnership from energy and defence cooperation to trade and important global developments. Grateful for their support for a stronger India–US relationship,” Kwatra had said in a post on X.
India buys about 88 per cent of its crude oil, which is converted into fuels like petrol and diesel, from overseas.
Russian oil made up hardly 0.2 per cent of all crude oil that India imported till 2021. India, the world's third-largest oil importer, became the largest buyer of discounted Russian crude after Western countries shunned Moscow following its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Traditionally reliant on Middle Eastern oil, India sharply ramped up Russian imports as sanctions and reduced European demand made barrels available at steep discounts, pushing its share from under 1 per cent to nearly 40 per cent of total crude imports.
In December, Russia remained India's top supplier, but its share fell to less than a quarter of all oil imports from about a third in November.
According to real-time data analytics company Kpler, Russian crude imports into India are expected to fall to around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in December, down from 1.84 million bpd in November, marking the lowest level since December 2022.