Trump has backed the toughest sanctions against Russia: Graham’s bill could be passed in the near future
14 July 03:46
U.S. President Donald Trump has endorsed the passage of a bipartisan bill imposing new sanctions on Russia, which the late Senator Lindsey Graham had been promoting for years. Support from the White House significantly increases the bill’s chances of passing quickly through Congress.
This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian", citing a CNN article and information from The Washington Post.
The White House backed the bill following the death of Lindsey Graham
According to CNN, a White House spokesperson confirmed that Donald Trump is ready to support the sanctions package that Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had been working on for several years.
This came just a few days after the sudden death of the senator, who was one of the most consistent advocates of tough economic pressure on Russia.
As The Washington Post notes, just one day before his death, Lindsey Graham was in Kyiv, where he announced that an agreement had been reached with the Trump administration regarding the future sanctions package.
What the new sanctions entail
The bill, jointly drafted by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, contains one of the toughest sets of sanctions against Moscow.
The bill allows the U.S. president to:
- impose high tariffs on countries that purchase Russian oil;
- impose economic restrictions on importers of Russian natural gas;
- impose sanctions on buyers of Russian uranium;
- increase economic pressure on the Kremlin through its key trading partners.
The goal of the bill is to reduce Russia’s revenue from energy exports and force the Kremlin to end the war against Ukraine.
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Graham and Blumenthal reached an agreement with the Trump administration
As early as July 10, Lindsey Graham, Richard Blumenthal, Jeanne Shaheen, and Roger Wicker announced that they had reached a compromise with the Donald Trump administration.
In a joint statement, the senators noted:
“We have reached an agreement with the Trump administration on a revised bill imposing sanctions against Russia and expect it to move forward as quickly as possible.”
The Senate is preparing for a vote
Senate Majority Leader John Thune stated that the White House worked closely with Lindsey Graham during the drafting of the bill.
According to him, the bill has sufficient bipartisan support.
“This will require votes from both Democrats and Republicans, but I hope we’ll be able to pull it off,” John Thune said.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal also announced that he will hold consultations in the near future regarding the timing of the bill’s vote.
The bill may be passed in honor of Lindsey Graham
Following the senator’s death, his colleagues called for the bill to be finalized as quickly as possible.
Richard Blumenthal stated that the best way to honor the memory of Lindsey Graham would be to pass the sanctions package.
Other U.S. lawmakers who support Ukraine share this view.
It should be noted that Lindsey Graham died on July 11 in Washington, D.C. Shortly before that, he had been on a visit to Ukraine, where he toured the production facilities of the defense company SkyFall, which manufactures drones for various purposes. The senator familiarized himself with the development and production processes for the Vampire heavy bomber drones, various models of the Shrike FPV drones, and the P1-SUN interceptors designed to counter Russian “Shahed”-type drones.
During the trip, Graham also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was accompanied to Kyiv by Michael McCaul, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and honorary chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
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