How Congress Sanctions a Foreign Government

What a sanction is, and what it is not

A sanction is a decision by one government to withhold something another government wants, money, trade, technology, or access to the financial system, in order to change that government's behavior without firing a shot. It sits between a diplomatic protest and a military strike. The United States runs many sanctions programs at once through the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the tool has become a default American response to foreign aggression precisely because it is forceful without being war.

Sanctions are also slow. They work by pressure over time, not by a single decisive act, and they are judged by whether the target's conduct eventually changes. That is worth holding in mind, because the bill the Senate took up this week is a large and clear example of the form, and reading it closely shows every part of how the country actually imposes economic pressure (Congress.gov, S.5025, Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026).

The two levers in the Graham bill

The bill works two ways at once. The first is direct and mandatory. It orders sanctions on Russian officials, oligarchs, state enterprises, major financial institutions, and the so-called shadow fleet of tankers that moves Russian oil around existing restrictions (CBS News, July 14, 2026). Those are the classic instruments: freeze assets, cut off access to dollars, bar transactions with named entities.

The second lever is newer and blunter. It authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on imports from the five largest purchasers of Russian oil and natural gas, a group that includes China and India (CBS News, July 14, 2026; TechTimes, July 29, 2026). The logic is to reach past Russia and press the countries that keep buying its energy. That is a secondary measure, aimed not at the target but at the target's customers, and it is the part of the bill that drew the most debate.

Where the president's sanction power usually comes from

Most sanctions do not require a new law. Since 1977, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act has let a president declare a national emergency and impose economic penalties on his own authority, and presidents of both parties have relied on it repeatedly (Congressional Research Service, The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, R45618). That is why sanctions are usually an executive act, announced from the White House rather than voted through Congress.

The Graham bill is notable for running the other way. Instead of leaning on emergency authority that courts have begun to question, it writes the tariff power directly into statute, which is why one analysis called it "IEEPA-proof" (TechTimes, July 29, 2026). When Congress puts an instrument into law rather than borrowing the president's emergency powers, it changes who owns the tool, and that ownership question runs through the rest of the bill.

The vote, and the objection from twelve

On Tuesday, July 28, 2026, the Senate voted 86 to 12 to take up the measure (Axios, July 29, 2026; Kurdistan24, July 28, 2026). President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine watched from the Senate gallery, a tribute to Senator Lindsey Graham, who had championed the sanctions and died on July 12, 2026, days after returning from Ukraine; the bill now carries his name (CBS News, July 14, 2026; Kurdistan24, July 28, 2026).

The twelve who voted no were not defending Russia. They were ten Democrats, independent Bernie Sanders, and Republican Rand Paul, and their objection was to the tariff authority, not to the sanctions on Moscow (The Hill, July 28, 2026; TechTimes, July 29, 2026). Some worried about the cost to American consumers of a 100 percent tariff on goods from China and India; Paul objected to handing any president that much power over trade. Read honestly, the 86 to 12 count is a near consensus on punishing Russia and a real disagreement about the tool, and both halves of that are worth stating.

The check that points back at the president

The bill contains a feature that is easy to miss and central to how it works: a congressional review mechanism that bars the president from lifting the sanctions without giving Congress a chance to weigh in, and it extends related Iran sanctions through 2031 (The Hill, July 28, 2026; TechTimes, July 29, 2026). In plain terms, Congress is not only handing the president a weapon. It is keeping a hand on the safety.

That is the rare direction for a check to run. Far more often the constitutional friction goes the other way, with Congress trying to stop a president and failing on the math. The body has overridden a presidential veto only 112 times in 237 years, about 7.3 percent of the 1,533 regular vetoes ever cast (U.S. Senate, Summary of Bills Vetoed, 1789 to present). US Political Rank documents that long record in its ranking of presidential vetoes and overrides. A sanctions bill that reserves a congressional say over its own repeal is Congress trying to keep leverage it usually surrenders.

Why sanctions belong in the presidential scorecard

Sanctions are foreign policy conducted with an economy instead of an army, and they belong in any honest accounting of what a presidency accomplished abroad. US Political Rank's ranking of presidents by foreign policy outcomes scores completed presidencies on results, from the 47 year peace of the Egypt and Israel treaty Carter brokered to the 95 to 1 Senate vote that admitted Finland and Sweden to NATO under Biden (history.state.gov, 1979; U.S. Senate, Treaty Document 117-3, 2022).

A sanctions law is a slower kind of result, measured in years and in the behavior of the target rather than in a single headline. Whether the Graham Act changes what Russia does is a question only time answers. What it already shows is the machinery: the levers a president can pull, the emergency powers that usually supply them, and the moment Congress decided to write one into law and keep the key.