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TOI correspondent from Washington: With no end in sight for Washington’s tariff tangle with India, more trouble appears to be looming for New Delhi after US President Donald Trump green-lit Wednesday a sweeping bipartisan legislation that will authorise him to slap primary and secondary sanctions as well as punitive tariffs up to 500% on Moscow and countries that still buy oil from Russia. The proposed Sanctioning Russia Act, simply called the Graham-Blumenthal Bill after the senators sponsoring it, would significantly raise pressure on Russia and countries such as China, India and Brazil, all part of Brics, which have so far withstood current US sanctions and tariffs. By legislatively empowering Trump beyond his current executive authority, lawmakers, in conjunction with White House, are also trying to get ahead of a US Supreme Court ruling in the tariff case – likely this month – that is widely expected to go against the administration. “This bill will allow President Trump to punish countries who buy cheap Russian oil fuelling Putin’s war machine… give him tremendous leverage against… China, India and Brazil to incentivise them to stop buying the oil that provides finance for Putin’s bloodbath against Ukraine,” Senator Lindsey Graham posted on X after a meeting where he said Trump green-lit passage of the legislation.
