Posted on 05/23/2025 12:57:13 PM PDT by Kazan
While tariffs make wars more likely, embargoes make wars difficult to avoid. Senator Lindsey Graham’s Sanctioning Russia Act calls for 500% tariffs on dozens of countries and essentially amounts to an embargo.
If this bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.
In its insistence that Moscow be a permanent enemy of the United States, the foreign policy establishment is pushing to impose more punitive measures on Russia should they refuse to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. The Sanctioning Russia Act seeks to inflict a series of additional sanctions and prohibitions of various financial transactions with Russia.
Yet, the most consequential and outright reckless provision of the bill seeks to enact minimum 500% secondary tariffs on countries who trade with Russia. Though the bill seeks to punish Russia, it will also punish America’s allies and even the United States itself. The global policemen in Washington are so incredulous that they cannot force peace between Russia and Ukraine that they formally abandoned even the pretense that their meddling is in America’s interests.
Specifically, the bill directs the President to impose 500% tariffs on all goods and services imported into the United States from a country that “knowingly sells, supplies, transfers, or purchases oil, uranium, natural gas, petroleum products, or petrochemical products that originated in the Russian Federation.” This tariff is subject to increase by no less than 500% every 90 days, meaning some countries could face 1,000% tariffs in just a few months.
In response to its invasion of Ukraine, the United States and its allies imposed some 16,000 sanctions, froze Russia’s sovereign assets, and implemented a series of severe financial restrictions. As the war wages in its fourth bloody year, it is safe to say that these measures unequivocally failed to alter Moscow’s war aims.
This inevitable failure was, of course, easily predictable to anyone who honestly assessed Russia’s motives for launching the war. The Kremlin views maintaining influence over Ukraine as necessary to prevent Ukraine’s alignment with the West, particularly preventing its efforts to join NATO, as a core national security interest. Countries will go to great lengths to secure what they deem are core interests, and given the tremendous amount of blood and treasure it has expended, Russia is no different.
Therefore, one should not expect additional punitive measures to alter Moscow’s strategic calculus in any meaningful manner.
Dozens of countries continue to trade with Russia directly and indirectly including key strategic allies and even the United States itself. In 2024, the United States imported $624 million worth of enriched uranium and plutonium directly from Russia. The United States, like many other countries, has also seen Russian crude oil imported from third countries who buy Russian oil and then sell it abroad. Are the proponents of this legislation honestly seeking to require the President to enact a 500 % tariff on ourselves?
What other countries would this bill implicate? According to the UN Comtrade Database, Israel imported $10.6 million in plastics from Russia in 2024. Do supporters of this bill really want to slap a 500% tariff on Israel while it is engaged in a multifront war? Last year, Taiwan, who many consider to be key to the U.S. defense posture in Asia, was Russia’s top consumer of naphtha — a petrochemical used in the production of plastics. Does anyone truly think that imposing a 500% tariff on all Taiwanese goods entering the United States will put them in a better position to defend themselves from potential Chinese aggression?
Likewise, Japan, another key ally in Asia, imported some $3.6 million worth of liquified natural gas (LNG) and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of plastics and rubber from Russia in 2024.
Our allies in Europe would also be severely affected. Despite strong rhetoric condemning Moscow, imports of Russian LNG into the European Union (EU) rose by 19.3% in 2024. In the first 15 days of 2025, EU countries imported over 837,000 metric tons of Russian LNG, with Germany, France, Belgium, and Spain being key importers. According to Trade Data Monitor, Ukraine itself is estimated to have imported over $200,000 in petroleum products from Russia in 2024, and up until January 1, 2025, Ukraine was facilitating the transfer of Russian gas to Europe via its trans-national pipelines.
The country that will be harmed the most under this legislation will be the United States, both economically and strategically. If implemented, these tariffs would make U.S. trade with most of the world untenable, raise prices for American consumers, and risk further weakening the dollar.
It would also degrade our relations with several important allies at a time when geopolitics is increasingly volatile. The United States should be leveraging its allies now more than ever as we face a myriad of pressing priorities, including an unsustainable $36 trillion national debt. Instead, this misguided legislation would drive many of our allies away and into the arms of other trading partners, including China. The bill certainly will not do anything to convince Russia to sue for peace in Ukraine. Rest assured that Moscow would welcome the United States sowing further division with its key trading partners.
Never underestimate Washington’s ability to make things worse. The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 will cut off our nose to spite our face. Congress should reject this misguided bill and instead focus its efforts to advance realistic peace negotiations in Ukraine and pursue policies that advance America’s national interests
Graham couldn't give a hoot how much this would harm this country.
Proposing this is yet another reason why Graham needs to be forced to find other work when his term is up.
I’m usually agin whatever Senator Lindsey Graham’s fer.
I can’t imagine that this bill has any chance of gaining Trump’s signature
I will leave it up to Trump to decide which is appropriate.
The ‘global policeman’ don’t want to enforce peace; they want to defeat Russia economically because NATO failed to defeat Russia militarily.
They know Zelensky will only accept victors spoils and reparations from Russia and given he will refuse all others, Putin must then concede even while winning militarily, in order to maintain trade with other nations. If that tactic works once (this time) then it will be deployed ‘as needed’ as NATO resumes it’s quest to force regime change in Russia to install a NATO puppet instead. That would give the UN, WEF, NATO, Globalist elites a nuclear arsenal.
Foreign policy ain’t your thing Rand. I’d hate to see what the world would look like at the end of a Rand Paul presidency. Leave this to the adults, Rand.
“ I’m usually agin whatever Senator Lindsey Graham’s fer.”
Paul’s in that boat too
Rand is a moron.
Trump’s tariff policy just secured big deals and over $10 trillion in new investments.
If you work in HVAC, carpentry, roofing, etc. jobs are going to be plentiful.
No one wants to make Moscow a permanent enemy. If Russia would just go home we can become friends again. However it should be noticed by its own geopolitical doctrine, Russia sees itself as a permanent enemy with the maritime powers, i.e., the US and Britain.
The Senate bill already has enough sponsors to make it veto proof.
Like his dad, Paul means well stands for a lot of right things, but he’s one-off on certain things including international relations, the free market, and (limited) tariffs.
He espouses the Constitution more than most in Congress, but seems to leave constitutional basis for or against federal action in certain areas.
Lots of “Veto proof” bills die when a bunch of supporting votes change after a veto. Sometimes they change even before a veto, even for sponsors.
I predict this won’t pass
Trump has already made his decision on putting more tariffs on Russian goods.
So then Russia's 5,000 nukes would no longer be pointed at America's heartland?
I'm inconsolable!
Seriously, folks! ransomnote would rather that Putin continue pointing nukes at America!
ransomnote has finally delivered incontrovertible proof that he is an enemy of America!
Regards,
Have you considered the possibility that Trump asked the Senate to hold off for a while (since April 26 when Sen. Graham first mentioned bringing secondary sanctions), and now he has given them the go ahead?
Russia could pay its arms workers and troops in Ukraine in gold for many years.
The US has 6% of the world’s population.
It can be bypassed, and will be, unless it plays nicely.
Lindsey Graham’s handlers are determined to push this proxy war off the cliff into World War.
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