WASHINGTON — Seven thousand miles from Moscow, India’s oil refineries are now the unintended target of legislation Donald Trump signed Friday, a sweeping sanctions law that gives the American president authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, a category that places both New Delhi and Beijing squarely in its crosshairs.
The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, named for the late South Carolina senator who championed the measure until his death in July, became law on September 18 after clearing the Senate 86-11 and the House 262-159. It represents the most ambitious American legislative effort yet to strangle the financial machinery sustaining Russia’s operation in Ukraine, and it sets a collision course with two of the world’s largest economies.
India has emerged as the world’s third-largest importer of Russian crude since the Western sanctions regime began in 2022. The volumes have been substantial enough for Washington to notice. Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal acknowledged Thursday that New Delhi was “monitoring the bill closely,” adding that India “was committed to its energy security” and would “diversify its energy sources” while taking “necessary measures to safeguard its trade interests.” The phrasing was diplomatic; the concern was not.
China’s exposure is similarly acute. Beijing has absorbed vast quantities of Russian energy since the West stepped away, and the law’s shadow fleet provisions target the network of tankers that carry Russian oil to markets beyond the reach of Western insurance and shipping rules, directly threatening the logistics chains that make Chinese imports of Russian crude possible.
The law does not automatically impose tariffs. That authority rests with the president, and whether Trump deploys it against India or China is a separate question from whether he now holds the legal instrument to do so. He does.
As the House passed the bill after overcoming Democratic resistance, senior American officials described the tariff provision as a “last resort.” It is now law, and its existence changes the calculus for every government that has continued purchasing Russian energy while paying lip service to Western sanctions pressure.
The law now reaches in several directions simultaneously. The Treasury and State departments must identify the five largest purchasers of Russian oil and gas within 180 days of enactment. Presidents have sixty days after that identification to either certify those countries are meaningfully reducing their Russian energy dependence, or begin imposing tariffs. The sequence provides a diplomatic off-ramp. Whether Washington uses it is not yet clear.
The Iran dimension is less novel but not trivial. The Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 has been extended through 2031. As Russia and China moved to shield Iran from UN sanctions scrutiny just days earlier, the extension closes a legislative gap that had created uncertainty about the durability of America’s Iran sanctions framework. Tehran’s response was not immediately available.
Graham, who died of a cardiac event in July at seventy-one, had introduced versions of this legislation repeatedly since the early days of the war. He was in Kyiv visiting Ukrainian officials in the weeks before his death. NBC News reported that colleagues described the bill’s passage as the completion of his most consequential late legislative project.
What the administration does with the authority it now holds is the central question. India’s diplomatic relationship with Washington has been carefully managed by both sides for years. New Delhi buys American weapons systems, participates in the Quad security framework, and has been cultivated as a strategic counterweight to Chinese regional influence. Triggering 100% tariffs on Indian exports over Russian oil purchases would upend that architecture in ways the administration could not easily reverse.
That calculation remains unresolved. Whether Trump’s India policy can survive his Russia policy is a question this law has forced, but not answered.
