Lindsey Graham: The man who pushed for 500% tariff on India over Russian oil purchases

Long-time US Senator from South Carolina and a staunch ally of US President Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham passed away on Saturday due to a sudden illness. While the 71-year-old Republican veteran will be known for pushing conservative, right-wing ideologies, in India he will be known for different reasons.

Over the years, Graham has created numerous controversies with his provocative statements. While he supported Trump on most matters, he has broken with the president on some issues, especially foreign policy. The division has become wider between the two Republican firebrands when it comes to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

While Trump has gone easy on Russia, often calling the country's President Vladimir Putin a "dear friend", Graham has maintained a personality of "Russia hawk", siding with Ukraine and pressing the Trump administration to impose tougher sanctions on Moscow.

This pressure was a bane for India as well. Since the start of the war, New Delhi had been one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil. It was this avenue that Graham had been advocating to block.

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The US Senator who pushed 500% tariffs on India

In February this year, Graham claimed that India has reduced its purchase of Russian oil "dramatically", advocating for the tariffs imposed by Trump on New Delhi. He referred to the move as a "good example" of how policy measures could influence other countries' actions.

A month before that, Graham lauded Trump for "greenlighting" a bill that the senator had worked on (Graham-Blumenthal sanctions bill), which proposed that the American president impose as high as 500 per cent tariffs on countries purchasing Russian oil, including India.

At that time, the South Carolina senator argued that the bill would "allow" Trump to "punish countries who buy cheap Russian oil fueling Putin's war machine".

Just days before his death, Graham paid a visit to Kyiv to extend his support to the Ukrainian cause. He was one of the crucial members of a bipartisan group of US senators that reached an agreement with the Trump administration to advance long-delayed legislation aimed at imposing tougher economic penalties on Russia and countries that continue to support Moscow’s war economy.

The breakthrough was announced on July 10, just two days before Graham passed away. Many in New Delhi saw it as concerning since India continues to buy oil from Russia, especially amid the ongoing crisis in West Asia.

At that time, Graham said that the agreement with the White House clears the way for the bill to move forward, arguing that the legislation would "allow the United States to punish countries helping Russia evade Western sanctions while creating leverage for negotiations."

“We’ve reached an agreement with the White House on a version of the Russian sanctions bill that they will support. It means it’s going to become law,” Graham told reporters in Kyiv after concluding his 10th wartime visit to Ukraine. The legislation was called the Sanctioning Russia Act, and with Graham's passing, the future of the bill remains uncertain.