Overview
- The U.S. Senate approved the bipartisan sanctions bill by an 86–11 vote on Friday, Aug. 7, and sent it to the House for further consideration.
- The law would let the United States impose up to 100% tariffs on all imports from countries that rank among the top five buyers of Russian crude or natural gas.
- Reporting identifies likely crude targets as China, India, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan and likely gas targets as China, France, Japan, Hungary and Belgium, though those lists are reported rather than set in the text.
- The bill gives President Trump broad authority to impose the tariffs and to waive them on national-interest grounds, a feature critics say could create politically driven exemptions.
- The measure also extends U.S. secondary sanctions related to Iran and includes carve-outs for countries that have cut Russian gas imports, a step meant to protect some allies and to limit wider energy-market disruption.