Why Trump finally agreed to support the bill on sanctions against Russia and what it contains

After nearly 17 months of disputes and discussions, the US sanctions bill against Russia could become the first sanctions law of Donald Trump’s current term aimed at the Kremlin. Moreover, it is expected to be a fairly tough one.

On 28 July, it passed a procedural vote in the Senate, where the proposal was supported by 86 senators, while only 12 voted against it.

It should be noted that this is not yet the final approval of the document by the US Congress.

In order to receive the green light from the White House, the bill’s co-authors had to make concessions to Donald Trump’s administration.

Read more about what exactly this long-contested bill – named after its late co-author Lindsey Graham – represents, who it is specifically aimed against, why it did not appeal to Democrats, and what consequences Ukraine can expect in the article by European Pravda journalist Olha Kovalchuk: The Senate breaks through the sanctions wall: what punishment the US is preparing for Russia and what Trump’s role will be. 

The late Lindsey Graham was considered one of the Senate’s most active supporters of Ukraine. During the last year and a half of his life, the senator devoted much of his work to attempts to establish legally binding punitive sanctions against Russia for merely pretending to engage in peace negotiations.

On 1 April, 2025, Graham, together with Democratic colleague Richard Blumenthal, introduced a bill known as the Sanctioning Russia Act. At the time, Donald Trump’s administration was making unsuccessful attempts to achieve a diplomatic end to the war in Ukraine (largely by pressuring Kyiv).

This is a document that proposes real tools of pressure on Moscow for refusing to engage in peace negotiations.

Last year, after the proposal was introduced, it received the support of 84 out of 100 senators. Despite such broad and bipartisan backing, the Graham–Blumenthal bill remained stuck in uncertainty for more than a year.

Judging from the official statements of Senator Graham and other co-authors of the bill, the reason for the delay was the White House’s position. Trump’s administration demanded that the final authority on imposing new sanctions against Russia remain with the president, rather than Congress.

In the summer of 2026, the White House finally began working on the bill. The real shift in Trump’s view of the situation occurred at the beginning of summer 2026 during the June G7 summit in Évian, France. After the meeting, summit host French President Emmanuel Macron said that all G7 leaders agreed that Russia was not showing serious readiness for peace.

Among other factors was the death of Lindsey Graham, who had visited Ukraine shortly before his passing. In addition, at the end of July, Ukraine was visited by one of the American president’s closest MAGA-aligned activists, far-right blogger Laura Loomer, who said that she now supported Kyiv.

As a result of negotiations with senators, the White House managed to secure several concessions in the bill.

First of all, the maximum rate of secondary tariffs was reduced from 500% to "a maximum of 100%", meaning that the president himself will choose the rate. These tariffs will apply only to five countries that were the largest buyers of Russian energy resources during the previous 12 months, and five states that helped circumvent sanctions on Russian oil during the same period. Which countries from each group of five will face tariffs will be decided by Trump.

Currently, the five largest importers of Russian oil are China, India, Slovakia, Hungary and Türkiye, while the largest buyers of Russian gas are China, France, Japan, Hungary and Belgium.

Importantly, the latest version of the bill is no longer tied to the peace negotiation process. Instead, it makes the restrictions mandatory within 30 days after the law takes effect, meaning it does not require a separate presidential decision to activate sanctions. The list of possible sanctions also goes beyond tariffs.

At the same time, 10 Democratic senators voted against the bill during its procedural review. Some Democratic critics are concerned that the legislation would grant the president unprecedentedly broad powers to impose tariffs, including against US trading partners.