The US Congress plans to resuscitate bill on"hell sanctions" against Russia, which was postponed in the summer after President Donald Trump apparently agreed to impose these sanctions by executive order, but has not yet done so. It writes about this Politico .

As Trump continues to evade imposing sanctions against Russia, and Republicans are afraid to bring the bill to a vote without his direct consent, the pro-Ukrainian wing of Republicans in Congress has come up with a new strategy: to tie this bill to the upcoming bill on funding the US government.

The fact is that Republicans in Congress do not have enough votes to pass a budget on their own. So the idea is to put up for a vote in one package both the budget bill, which the Republicans need, and the sanctions bill against Russia, which the Democrats have already supported and which they cannot simply ignore.

The plan was conceived by the author of the sanctions bill, Senator Lindsey Graham, known for his pro-Ukrainian stance. He was supported by another pro-Ukrainian Republican, Brian Fitzpatrick. They said they plan to urge their colleagues from both parties to support such a package voting format next week.

As Politico writes, in theory, isolationist Republicans who advocate for US non-interference in the Russian-Ukrainian war are more likely to support a bill on sanctions against Russia if it helps pass a budget bill. Similarly, pro-Ukrainian Democrats are more likely to vote for the budget if it is in the same package with sanctions against Russia. And most importantly, in theory, this scheme should not anger Trump, who has been slowing down the sanctions bill in Congress all the time.

According to Politico, the idea was apparently welcomed by the leadership of the Republican majority in the Senate, which has so far tried to avoid confrontation with Trump on the issue of sanctions against Russia.

In parallel, Senator Graham is trying to persuade the European Union to agree to Trump's demands to impose trade tariffs against China and India as a condition for imposing new US sanctions against Russia.

"The way to keep Trump on your side is to align yourself with him on China and India. If you like Graham's bill so much, why don't you pass it too?" Lindsey Graham himself tells the Europeans.

Graham's bill on"hell sanctions" against Russia

As UNIAN reported, in early spring, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill in the US Congress on new sanctions against Russia. Among other things, it provides for tougher restrictions on the Russian banking sector and oil industry. The central element of the bill is a proposal to introduce secondary sanctions against buyers of Russian oil and gas. Namely, a 500 percent duty on goods from these countries supplied to the US.

Graham's bill received broad support from both Republicans and Democrats The document had every chance of passing through the American parliament, but Republicans did not put it to a vote so as not to anger Trump, who convinced everyone that he was about to reach an agreement with Putin to end the war.

In July, Trump finally announced that he would personally impose tariffs on goods from India and China, as Russia had not agreed to peace. At the same time, the US President promised to set tariffs at 100% instead of 500%.

After this promise, Graham postponed his bill as no longer relevant. However, since then, Trump has only imposed a 25% additional tariff on Indian goods as punishment for buying Russian oil, which, however, continues to be supplied to this day. He has not punished China, Turkey, Hungary, and other buyers of Russian oil at all.