The Graham Act gives Donald Trump the tools to bankrupt Putin

By Bram de Vries · Reporting from Amsterdam · September 17, 2026

In the port of Rotterdam, we understand a fundamental truth: trade is not a polite conversation; it is the circulatory system of power.

In the port of Rotterdam, we understand a fundamental truth: trade is not a polite conversation; it is the circulatory system of power. When you want to kill a beast, you do not argue with it; you cut off its blood supply. For too long, the West has treated the Russian war machine like a stubborn tenant who can be nudged out with a few targeted fines. The passage of the 'Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026' signals that the United States has finally stopped nudging and started strangling.

The Logistics of a Global Tourniquet

The numbers from Washington are clear. As reported by Al Jazeera, the US House of Representatives passed this sweeping sanctions bill with a 262-159 vote, following a decisive 86-11 victory in the Senate last month. The legislation, championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham and co-written with Richard Blumenthal, is now on the desk of President Donald Trump, who has already signaled his intent to sign it.

This is not another list of frozen yachts for oligarchs to complain about over cocktails. According to ABC News, the bill targets the very plumbing of the Russian economy: the energy and defense sectors, and specifically the "shadow fleet" of aging tankers used to sneak oil past Western inspectors. Most aggressively, it grants President Trump the authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on countries that continue to import Russian energy—with China and India explicitly in the crosshairs.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who pushed hard for this measure, knows that strength is the only currency Vladimir Putin recognizes. House Speaker Mike Johnson put it bluntly: the era of Putin bankrolling his war with resources from countries "willing to look the other way" is over. This is a mercantile strike designed to bankrupt the aggressor.

The Mechanism of Systemic Exclusion

To the casual observer, this looks like a sudden escalation. To anyone who understands the long record of geopolitical rivalry, this is a textbook application of the Cold War. I am not talking about the ideological theater of the 1950s, but the actual mechanism: the use of economic warfare and containment strategies to isolate a rival and degrade its capacity to wage war through systemic exclusion.

During the Cold War, the goal was to ensure the Soviet Union could not access the technology or capital required to maintain its empire. The Graham Act does the same for the 21st century, treating the global energy market as the new frontline. By targeting the "shadow fleet," the US is closing the logistical loopholes that have allowed Russia to circumvent previous efforts. We saw the beginning of this shift with the Magnitsky Act in 2014, which began the process of identifying and isolating specific Russian actors. It was later reinforced by the 2018 US sanctions on Russia, which targeted energy and intelligence. But those were scalpels; the Graham Act is a sledgehammer.

The logic is simple: if you cannot stop the missiles in the air, you stop the rubles that pay for the fuel. By forcing a choice between the American market and Russian oil, the US is recreating the containment walls of the previous century, this time built out of tariffs and trade barriers.

Defeating the Luxury of Caution

There are those, like House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who recoil at the "unfettered authority" this bill gives Donald Trump. Jeffries argues that these tariffs will act as a tax on the American people, causing costs to skyrocket for working families. This is the strongest case the opposition can make: that the collateral damage to the global consumer outweighs the strategic gain.

It is a timid argument. It is the argument of a bookkeeper who worries about the cost of the fire extinguisher while the warehouse is burning down. The "cost" of a prolonged war in Europe is far higher than a temporary spike in consumer prices. The US-China trade war of 2018 proved that tariffs are not merely about protecting domestic industry; they are tools of geopolitical alignment. When the US imposed sanctions on Iran in 2018, it did so knowing it would disrupt global energy flows, because the alternative—an unchecked rogue state—was an unacceptable risk.

The critics fear the "loopholes" or the President's power to waive sanctions, but they miss the point. The power to waive is the power to negotiate. By holding a 100 percent tariff over the heads of New Delhi and Beijing, Trump gains the leverage to force those nations to stop subsidizing Putin's aggression. You do not get a country like China to change its trade patterns by asking nicely; you make the cost of their current behavior ruinous.

The Price of a Just End

The trajectory is now set. President Donald Trump will sign this bill, and he will use the tariff authority as a weapon of coercion. He will not use it subtly. He will squeeze the five largest importers of Russian crude until the cost of doing business with Moscow exceeds the benefit.

We can expect Vladimir Putin to respond with more drones and more strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, as we saw on September 16. But drones are expensive, and the rubles to pay for them are finite. The 'Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act' is the first piece of legislation in over two years to actually provide the tools necessary to end this war. It recognizes that the only way to bring a "just end" to the conflict is to make the war an unsustainable business venture for the Kremlin.

The era of apologizing for the brutality of capitalism is over. We are now using the machinery of the market to dismantle a war machine. It is cold, it is mercantile, and it is the only strategy that actually works.

Sources

1. Al Jazeera: Congress passes sweeping US sanctions bill targeting Russia
2. DW: US Congress passes Russia sanctions bill
3. RTÉ: US passes sanctions bill targeting Russia
4. Anadolu Agency: US House passes Russia sanctions bill
5. ABC News: House passes Russia and Iran sanctions bill championed by Sen. Lindsey Graham