Ep. 52: Return of the Tariff Hammer? Presidential Trade Power and the Graham Russia Sanctions Bill

Thank you, Ken.

And thanks to our panelists.

On these programs, in the past, we've often had folks with tons of negotiating experience, USTR veterans, et cetera.

It seems the common thread among the four of us is experience on the trade committees in Congress, ways and means and finance.

So we'll use that theme to kind of go into a few things on the legislative front.

as well as ongoing negotiations and tariff actions by the administration.

So lots to discuss, but let's go ahead and start on the legislative front.

It was a week ago today, actually, that media was reporting an agreement between four senators led by the late Senator Lindsey Graham and the White House over a new Russia sanctions bill.

Obviously, he tragically passed away the next day.

And now there's a lot of discussion about moving that legislation forward.

And I say Russia sanctions, but let's call it the Russia tariff bill because those are significant provisions here.

And so I want to unpack why.

what the bill actually does on tariffs, what the implications might be.

And then if you all have thoughts on the likelihood that it will move forward in Congress.

So who would like to start? Nina, would you like to start on the content of the bill? And then quickly we'll bring in Mayor and Blake as well.

Sure, Mike.

And yeah, indeed, this particular piece of legislation has had an interesting history because the vast majority of the language has been out there really since last year when the bill was first introduced in the House in April of 2025.

But as you mentioned, due to the untimely passing of Senator Graham, this bill has definitely picked up speed and gained momentum and I think may have even been actually introduced last night.

So we will see what the co-sponsorship and the like looks like and what ultimately happens here.

But in short, the bill, as you mentioned, it's a combination of sanctions and new tariff authorities.

So the bill enshrines a lot of the existing Russia sanctions that since 2022, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have been done purely really through executive action.

So there's codification on the sanction side and also restrictions on the back end for the types of lifting of sanctions that the president can undertake and requiring, in fact, reports to Congress and a potential for Congress to consider and have the opportunity to enact a disapproval resolution in the case that it disagrees with the president on certain terminations of sanctions.

But as you mentioned, the big news here is really on the tariff side, where there's very little trade between the US and Russia.

So this up to 500% duty on Russian goods, I think is a limited part of the story here.

I think the bigger piece is the up to 100% duties on other trading partners who have interactions with Russia.