US House Advances Bill Threatening 100% Tariffs on India

The US House is inches closer to voting on the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

The bill gives President Trump the ability to place 100% tariffs on countries that continue to buy Russian crude oil and gas or aid Russia in evading the sanctions currently in place.

The bill was voted 86-11 in the Senate on August 7. The House Rules committee is currently deliberating the legislation, paving the way for a full House vote.

House Speaker Mike Johnson stated that the legislation could be rushed before the seven-week recess in Congress starts this Thursday.

Representative Steny Hoyer of the Democratic Party suggested naming specifically India, China, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Hungary, Slovakia, the UAE, Singapore, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan as nations that must be charged 100% duties.

This amendment will be replacing the current Senate language where there is an emphasis on the top five buyers of Russian oil and gas instead of naming countries specifically.

At the opposite end, Democratic Representative Gregory Meeks, along with his three colleagues, sought to abolish Section 113 completely—the section that grants the president such tariff powers in the first place.

Both amendments were voted down by the Rules Committee.

India is the second largest purchaser of Russian oil, following China, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

India has bought about 144 billion euros’ worth of Russian oil since the outbreak of the Ukraine war, according to the same research organization.

New Delhi has maintained that these purchases are in the best interests of the nation because of energy security for the 1.4 billion population in India.

This is not the first time that India is facing such a danger. President Trump has slapped a 50% tax on goods from India on account of buying Russian oil, and there was an earlier version of this bill that had envisaged tariffs up to 500%.

The piece of legislation has undergone some number of drafts since its introduction. For example, an April draft authored by Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal has envisaged a 500% tariff on any country purchasing Russian oil or raw material.

President Trump has even requested that the Senate should postpone the vote on that draft in June, as stated by Senator Roger Wicker, while the bill enjoyed bipartisan approval with 82 out of 100 senators supporting it at that time.

By August, President Trump allegedly "greenlit" another draft of the bill, while Lindsey Graham noted that the aim is to grant the president "the ability to make that a hard choice by tariffs" for those countries purchasing cheap Russian crude.

The Kremlin referred to this tariff policy proposal as "unacceptable," as reported regarding the Russian response to the situation.

This reaction highlights the fact that this bill impacts more than Russia, reaching all countries that continue doing business with Moscow in terms of energy.

With the completion of the Rules Committee process, the bill is now ready for a full vote by the entire House of Representatives, which could happen as early as this week.

The additional 100% tariff threat creates further uncertainty in an already difficult economic relationship with the U.S., considering India currently pays a 50% tariff linked to the same problem.

India has not yet made any new statements in light of Monday's news, although it has been consistently stating its view that the import of energy is a sovereign right and not one open to negotiation via tariffs.