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Bipartisan pressure on Russia sanctions has been brewing for months and has fueled waves of speculation about whether the legislation will receive a vote.
A signal or suggestion of support from President Donald Trump usually pushes the bill from Sens. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., are close to completion, but have been swept back into choppy, murky waters with no clear path to when or if the package will reach the president’s desk.
Now, Trump has given Graham the “greenlight” to move forward with his long-standing sanctions package as peace talks between Russia and Ukraine continue to simmer in the background.
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Graham told Fox News Digital that this time, he believes the bill will actually get a shot.
“It will never go back on the shelf because President Trump believes he needs it,” Graham said. “I think you need it.”
But it’s been a week since Graham announced the president’s support for the package, and so far, it hasn’t made it to the floor of the upper chamber. Lawmakers are also out this week and will return to Washington, DC, next week with the initial goal of averting a partial government shutdown.
However, the bipartisan duo has been working on the law for the past few months, but the main goal would be to charge countries that buy energy products from Moscow with eye-popping taxes.
The aim is to cripple Russia’s war machine by imposing tariffs on oil, gas, uranium and other exports, bought mainly by China and India, which comprise about three-quarters of Moscow’s energy business.
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Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., believes his Russia sanctions package should start in the Senate, despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D., saying it should come from the House. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The package has been on the backburner as the Trump administration works on trade deals between Russia and Ukraine. Recent iterations of that agreement have often included provisions that would have required Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not initiate.
Trump told Reuters in an interview published last week that it was Zelenskyy who held talks on the peace deal and argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin was “ready to make a deal,” while Ukraine “wasn’t ready to make a deal.”
Although the package did not make it to the floor of the upper chamber, a White House official confirmed to Fox News Digital that Trump supports the legislation.
But one issue that threatens to upend the process is where the package starts in Congress.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D., reiterated his position that any Russia sanctions package, despite laboring in the Senate for several months, should begin in the House, given the potential budget impact it would have.
That would require buy-in from House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to repeat Graham and Blumenthal’s proposal, or make their own. After that it will need to hit the floor of the House, which may take longer than lawmakers in the upper chamber are willing to wait.
As to whether Johnson said he would put it down, Thune said, “He hasn’t.”
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, RS.D., believes the Russia sanctions package of Sen. Lindsey Graham should start in the House, given the impact it will have on the budget. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
“But I think if it’s something that, you know, the White House — it’s important to them, it’s important, especially dealing with Russia and Ukraine, I would think they’re going to try to do that,” he said.
This is where it stops.
Johnson supports Russia sanctions but has repeatedly said he believes the sanctions bill should come up in the Senate.
He pointed out that starting this legislation in the House will greatly slow down its progress, given the many committees that must pass before it can be voted on.
Graham believes the “sense of urgency is now greater than ever” and noted that he told Thune he wants the legislation to begin in the Senate, where it has more than 80 co-sponsors.
“This is where the idea came from, get a big bipartisan vote and try to get President Trump to use these tools from Congress to end this bloodshed,” Graham said.
“Now, in a normal world it would be, but I think the momentum is in the Senate,” he continued. “We can take a shell – It’s not that hard. I mean, I’ve been working on my – [off] at this thing for over a year, however long it’s been.”
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Blumenthal told Fox News Digital that he was talking to colleagues in the basement and added that there was “no reason” that the package should have been tied up or stumbled across the house.
Blumenthal and Graham view their sanctions pressure as providing Trump with another weapon to force Putin to the negotiating table.
He asserted that “security is the linchpin here, but forcing Putin to come to the table includes economic pressure, and ultimately, we want peace, and that will include both economic and military security.”
“I feel very encouraged, because I think there’s a lot coming together,” Blumenthal said.
