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New Delhi. A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has introduced a new sanctions bill. In this bill, there is a demand to impose a ban on India for buying crude oil from Russia. In this bill, it has been proposed to impose a tariff of up to 100% on the exports of 5 major countries – India, China, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan. Its main objective is to curb Russia’s energy earnings and to put pressure on ending the Ukraine war.

What are the main points of this new bill?

This bill is a softer version of the ‘Sanctioning Russia Act’ introduced in the Senate in April 2025. In the old bill, there was a proposal to impose tariff up to 500%, on which agreement could not be reached. In the new bill, this maximum tariff has been reduced to 100%.

Under the new bill, China, India, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan have been specifically targeted, which are currently the largest buyers of Russian crude oil. US President Donald Trump has given his support to this bill. The bill was drafted by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (who passed away recently). Trump has said that this bill has been brought in honor of Graham. Those countries that import less than 15% of their total natural gas needs from Russia and are taking active steps to reduce this dependence have been kept out of the scope of this bill.

What does this mean for India?

This threat of new tariffs has come at a time when India’s purchases of Russian crude oil have reached record levels. India had to turn to Russia due to disruption in shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, due to Iran’s retaliatory action after the US-Israel military attacks, the supply of crude oil coming from Gulf countries was affected. This supply earlier used to constitute about 40% of India’s total oil imports. To stabilize the global energy market amid the crisis, Washington itself granted a temporary relaxation in sanctions (which expired on June 17), forcing Indian refineries to turn to Russian crude as their main alternative.

India’s Russian crude oil imports surged 34% to a record high in June 2026, according to data from the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air. Its total value was about 4.5 billion euros, which is about 36% of Russia’s total crude oil export revenues. India has become the second largest buyer of Russian oil after China.

What will happen next now?

According to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) will decide how much tariff to impose on which country. He said this rate will be set at a reasonable level to discourage China, India and other big buyers. Supporters of the bill hope that it will be passed in the Senate before August. However, some MPs in the US Parliament have strongly criticized this bill. They argue that it gives the President unlimited backdoor power to impose tariffs, which will ultimately hurt ordinary American families.