Congress gave final approval to a bill to give President Donald Trump new powers to impose tariffs on countries that purchase Russian petroleum products, a setback for a coalition of business lobbyists concerned the legislation creates a legal underpinning for a broad new tariff regime against US trading partners.
The legislation, which the House passed Wednesday in a 262-159 vote, has been celebrated by Ukrainian officials eager for a tangible sign of US support in its fight against a Russian invasion. The war, now in its fifth year, is in a critical phase of escalation.
The measure now goes to Trump’s desk for his signature, after the Senate last month. The president plans to sign the bill in the coming days, a White House official said.
The top five purchasers of Russian petroleum products — a list that includes China, India and US allies like Turkey — could be hit with broad new tariffs, if Trump chooses to use the new powers. Democrats offered an amendment to clarify that the European Union would not be considered as one country under the bill, but the effort to preemptively limit the scope of the bill was rejected.
“This legislation strengthens economic sanctions against the Russian government, its financial institutions, and the foreign governments that aid Russian aggression against Ukraine by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas and helping the Kremlin evade other sanctions,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement after the vote.
The Kremlin on Thursday called passage of the measure an “unfriendly” move and warned it could affect negotiations to end the war. “The introduction of some additional sanctions from the US will certainly complicate efforts to reach a peaceful settlement in Ukraine,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to the Interfax news service.
The bill in the House earlier this month after lobbyists from the US Chamber of Commerce, National Foreign Trade Council and other business groups opposed it.
Yet the White House ultimately urged House leaders to vote on it before leaving town for an extended break.
The legislation has caused divides in both parties, pitting Ukraine’s most ardent supporters against those more focused on tariff-spiked inflation in the run-up to a November midterm election focused heavily on voter dissatisfaction with the US economy. Ultimately, 58 Democrats voted for the measure, while seven Republicans opposed it.
House Foreign Affairs top Democrat Gregory Meeks of New York warned the bill will exacerbate an affordability crisis in the US by allowing more tariffs on US allies.
“We cannot grant the president more tariff authority that we know he will abuse,” Meeks said.
But Virginia Democrat Eugene Vindman, who was born in Kyiv, retorted that Russian President Vladimir Putin “will only back down when there are clear consequences for his aggression.”
Several vulnerable Republicans backed the new tariffs, taking a political gamble in an election where commodity prices and especially gasoline prices are front and center. Forcing China and India to buy oil from non-Russian suppliers could add further demand to a market where supply has been constrained due to the US war in Iran.
“Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, an ardent supporter of Ukraine, said on the House floor, adding that the US has an obligation to support Ukrainians fighting on the front line. Fitzpatrick is facing a tough reelection fight due to concerns about inflation spurred on by Trump’s existing tariffs.
Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy is looking to secure a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week in New York, after a string of US official correspondence with Moscow has thrown into doubt whether the US will pressure Putin to end the war — or keep up efforts to constrain Ukraine’s attacks on Russian energy facilities that the US has blamed for a global surge in diesel prices.
Denys Sienik, Ukraine’s Chargé D’Affaires, Tuesday night at an independence day celebration in Washington, thanked pro-Ukraine lawmakers “for every vote you cast in support of Ukraine, in support of freedom.”
Whether the administration would actually use the new powers to boost pressure on Iran or Russia remains unclear. The White House negotiated broad waivers in the bill that give the president wide discretion not to impose penalties.
The bill allows the president to impose a blanket tariff of 500% on Russian goods imported to the US and an additional 100% tariff on the top five energy importers and countries that import Russian crude oil or natural gas, or that facilitate sanctions evasion. The new tariff authority expires after five years.
The bill would also extend the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 through 2031, preventing a potential lapse in authority. That law imposes secondary economic sanctions on non-US companies doing business with Iran and was meant to expire this year.
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