China’s Ministry of Commerce said it reserves the right to take “all necessary measures” to protect Chinese companies after President Donald Trump signed H.R. 5334, the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. The ministry’s statement, issued as Washington prepared to host Chinese President Xi Jinping on September 24, opposed unilateral and secondary sanctions and asked the United States to “meet Beijing halfway.”

What the statute actually does

The White House listed the Friday signing in a one-paragraph notice: the act “authorizes and expands statutory sanctions, tariffs, and prohibitions on Russia and extends existing sanctions on Iran.” The operative politics live in the tariff clause. Within 30 days, the president is directed to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods imported from the five largest buyers of Russian crude or gas, plus countries judged to be top facilitators of sanctions evasion. China and India are the two largest importers of Russian oil. The bill names no specific capitals and writes no formula for ranking those five, which is why House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the sanctions language full of loopholes even as he warned the tariff powers would raise costs for U.S. households.

Congress sent the package with rare bipartisan margins—86–11 in the Senate and 262–159 in the House, including 58 House Democrats. It is the first major Ukraine-related statute to clear both chambers in more than two years. Supporters, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and co-author Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., framed it as pressure on what Johnson called “the Russian war machine.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had lobbied for the vote, called the law “an extremely powerful tool.”

The 30-day clock and the Xi meeting

The law gives Trump 30 days to act and broad authority to suspend or delay the restrictions. That clock now overlaps a state visit. Reuters reported that an announcement on the tariffs could slip toward the November midterms because new duties would push oil prices higher while U.S. voters already complain about costs. The same reporting treated the signature as leverage ahead of Xi’s arrival. Beijing’s commerce ministry answered on that timeline: China “will continue to watch closely what the U.S. does next.”

Who feels it here

U.S. refiners, Midwest chemical plants, and West Coast container terminals do not buy Urals barrels directly the way independent Chinese teapot refiners do. They do buy diesel, petrochemical feedstocks, and manufactured goods whose prices move when Washington threatens 100% tariffs on Chinese exports. Jeffries’s objection is the domestic politics of that second-order hit. India, the other large buyer, said this week it “remains firmly committed to ensuring energy security for its 1.4 billion people.” The Kremlin had not commented on the signature by early Saturday; after Congress passed the bill, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said new U.S. sanctions would complicate talks to end the war.

What happens next

The statute also hits Russian defense, energy, and financial entities, the shadow tanker fleet, and named officials, and it extends Iran energy and weapons sanctions—the five-year Iran piece Trump wanted in exchange for signing. None of that is self-executing at the Port of Los Angeles. The next U.S. paper to watch is whether the administration publishes a top-five buyer list inside 30 days, delays it, or uses the waiver language to keep Chinese goods off the tariff schedule until after Xi leaves. Beijing has already said the cooperation it calls “normal trade” should not be “subject to interference or pressure from any third party.”