WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump has signed a sweeping new Russia sanctions bill into law, giving his administration unprecedented authority to impose tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries that are major purchasers of Russian oil and gas, including India.
Trump signed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act into law on Friday, two days after the US House of Representatives passed it by a bipartisan vote of 262-159. The Senate had approved the measure in August.
The law intensifies US economic pressure on Russia over its war in Ukraine and targets Russian officials, financial institutions, energy interests and entities involved in sanctions evasion, including the so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers. However, its most potent mechanism empowers the US administration to impose secondary trade penalties on third-party nations maintaining robust energy trade with Moscow. However, the tariffs are not automatically imposed by the law and their application remains subject to the administration’s implementation.
The law mandates tariffs of up to 500 per cent directly on Russian-origin products. More crucially for global markets, it provisions secondary import duties capped at 100 per cent on goods originating from top buyers of Russian crude and natural gas.
Since the outbreak of the Ukraine conflict, Indian and Chinese refiners have purchased significant volumes of Russian crude, much of it at discounted prices, making their trade with Moscow a focus of Washington’s sanctions policy.
The enactment leaves foreign policy strategists in New Delhi and Beijing weighing their options. While the legislation grants President Trump broad discretion over when and how to enforce penalties, the prospect of 100 per cent tariffs introduces severe uncertainty for Indian exporters reliant on the lucrative American consumer market.
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