Congress surrenders power to Trump via the Graham Act
By Elena Rossi · Reporting from Rome ·
There is a particular kind of American theater that mistakes the demolition of a guardrail for a gesture of courage. On Wednesday, the U.S.
# The Tariff Detonator
Political performance in Washington often mistakes removing a safety check for a gesture of courage. On Wednesday, the House of Representatives performed this act when roughly two-thirds of its members voted to pass the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. Nearly the entire Senate had already approved the bill in August. Supporters frame the effort as a way to cripple the Russian war machine, but beyond the rhetoric and the naming of the bill after the late Senator Graham, the law surrenders legislative authority to the executive.
By granting President Trump the power to double the price of imports from the top purchasers of Russian energy—targeting the massive oil and gas imports of China and India—Congress does not merely sanction Vladimir Putin. It hands the White House a tool that could freeze shipping lanes and stock tickers. CNBC and The Guardian said the bill targets "shadow tankers"—ships that disable their transponders to hide the origin of Russian oil—and Russian officials, but the real engine is this sweeping tariff authority. Rep. Don Bacon called this a decisive stand. To those who have watched the erosion of checks and balances, it looks like a panicked shortcut.
Does urgency justify the risk?
The argument for the bill rests on a moral necessity. Advocates said the urgent need in Ukraine—marked by missile shortages and Russian drone strikes—demands a massive economic lever. They argue that the only way to stop a war of conquest is to choke the money flow, even if consumers pay more at the pump and the grocery store. In this view, higher prices are a fair trade for the liberation of a sovereign nation.
But this premise is dangerous. The administration used similar blunt tools during the US-China trade war of 2018, treating tariffs as a hammer rather than a precision instrument. The danger is not just the price hikes, but the fact that no one oversees the process. Rep. Don Beyer told NPR that the bill allows the president to label basically any country as a facilitator of sanctions evasion without an expiration date or congressional review. When the government removes the slow parts of democracy—the debate, the specific mandates, and the sunset clauses—it does not become more efficient; it becomes more volatile.
A Ghost from 1930
The law follows a pattern. How the Graham Act works—using trade barriers to isolate an adversary—mirrors the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Back then, the U.S. raised tariffs on thousands of items, from wheat to wool, to shield domestic industry as the Great Depression began. This did not provide protection; instead, other nations retaliated, which deepened the economic misery of the entire world.
The same logic applies here: the belief that a nation can control global trade to achieve a political end without triggering a market crash. Just as Smoot-Hawley turned a recession into a decade of poverty by poisoning international cooperation, this bill risks turning a geopolitical conflict into a global trade war. We saw how easily energy supplies break during the 2012 gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine, which froze flows to Europe; doubling the cost of trade for the world's largest economies invites a chaos that no amount of courage can fix.
Congress is clearing the path
The legislative branch currently acts as if its only job is to clear the path for the executive. This reverses the balance between the Capitol and the White House. These branches clashed during the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017 and again during the dysfunctional 2019 impeachment proceedings. In both instances, the friction was a sign that the system was attempting to balance power.
By removing that friction, Congress abandons its own authority. The founders designed legislative delays to prevent a single person's impulse from becoming a nation's destiny. To let a president label a trading partner an enemy by decree is to admit that the law no longer holds authority—only the man does.
The Graham Act does not secure a victory for Ukraine or a strategic win for the United States. It is an abdication. By swapping checks and balances for speed, Congress has not ended a war; it has merely ensured that when the market crashes, no one will be left in the room with the power to stop it.
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WTI crude oil price. Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).