Press Release

Amendment would reassert Congress’ tariff authorities WASHINGTON, D.C .— U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) today filed an amendment to the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act to remove language in Section 113 of the Act that could enable the Trump Administration to impose tariffs on any country, for any reason. As written, the legislation grants President Trump new authorities to impose massive tariffs on countries that ‘facilitate’ Russia oil sanctions evasion. However, in practice, the President could impose tariffs of up to 100% on nearly any country, taking this Constitutional authority out of the hands of Congress. Senator Welch announced his intent to file an amendment on the Senate Floor Tuesday evening: “…Our language must specify our intent and do so with absolute clarity: Go after the buyers. That was Senator Graham’s goal. And we must have language that makes achieving that goal real. That is why when we take up the Graham-Blumenthal bill, I will offer an amendment to strike the overly-vague delegation of tariff authorities to also target ‘facilitators’ of sanctions evasions. As currently written, the facilitator provision enables the Executive, with full congressional authorization, to impose any tariffs, on any country, for any reason—so long as the Executive labels the tariff country a ‘facilitator.’ “If we delete the facilitator provision, as I propose, we do achieve senator Graham’s goal without his bill being used for any other purposes. In doing so, the bill would retaining the original tariff authority that only targets buyers of Russian oil…Senator Graham, and many of us, myself included—agreed about maximizing the imperative of sanctions and tariff tools to hurt Putin and stop his aggression against Ukrainian civilians. And I hope we can honor Senator Graham by quickly coming together to pass a bipartisan bill that will specifically and effectively target the companies and countries that are buying the oil that Putin is using to pay for the missiles and the bombs that are raining down on the innocent people of Ukraine.” View and download Senator Welch’s amendment here . ###