The US Now Has a Law Authorising Up To 100 Percent Duties on Russian-Energy Buyers. What It Does and Does Not Do to Indian Cloth

What was signed, and what the text actually says

On 18 September 2026 the President signed H.R.5334, the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, into law. We have read the enrolled text rather than the coverage of it, because the coverage and the statute say noticeably different things, and the difference is the whole of what a buyer should conclude.

Two separate tariff sections sit in the Act and they are easy to confuse. Section 112 deals with goods imported from Russia itself and directs a rate of up to 500 percent ad valorem. That is not our subject and it has nothing to do with Indian cloth. The section that could reach Indian goods is Section 113, and its number is up to 100 percent.

Section 113(a) says that not later than 30 days after enactment the President shall, notwithstanding any other provision of law, increase the rate of duty for all goods imported into the United States from a country described in subsection (c), and only from such a country, to a rate of up to 100 percent ad valorem. Note the two halves of that sentence. It is mandatory as to acting, and it is a ceiling as to the rate.

The test is a formula, and India is not named in it

The statute names no country. Subsection (c) sets a test instead, and a country falls inside it on either of two routes. The first route has two limbs that must both be met: the country knowingly made new purchases of crude oil or natural gas originating in the Russian Federation on or after the date 30 days after enactment, and it was among the five largest importers by total volume of Russian-origin crude or gas during the most recent twelve-month period before enactment. The second route is being among the top five countries facilitating Russian oil sanctions evasion over the same look-back period.

India is widely reported to be among the largest buyers of Russian crude, and that reporting is why the Act has been read in India as an India measure. It is worth being exact about what follows from it. The look-back limb is about past volumes, but the first limb is about new purchases made after the clock runs out, which is a question about conduct that has not happened yet. A country that stops making new purchases does not satisfy the first route, however large its past volumes were.

There is also a narrow carve-out at subsection (d) on the gas side only, for a country whose Russian-origin natural gas imports were under 15 percent of Russia's total annual gas exports in the look-back period and which has taken significant steps to reduce them. It does not touch the crude limb.

So the honest position on 19 September 2026 is that an authority exists, the determination is an executive one, and no rate has been set on Indian goods. Anyone telling a buyer that Indian fabric now carries a 100 percent US duty is describing a ceiling in a statute as though it were a rate on an entry summary.

The clause that would decide a landed cost is the stacking clause

If a rate is ever set under Section 113, subsection (f) governs what it does to a customs bill, and it is the part worth reading twice. The duty imposed under this section is in addition to any other duty, fee, tax, exaction or charge applicable to the good, and the text names what it stacks on: countervailing and anti-dumping duties under title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930, and actions under sections 122, 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

Section 301 is on that list, and Section 301 is where the duty Indian goods actually carry today comes from. We set out that measure in the US tariff on Indian textiles has a published number again: a 10 percent rate on Indian goods for entries from 24 July 2026. Nothing in the new Act changes that 10 percent. What the new Act establishes is that anything imposed under Section 113 would sit on top of it rather than replace it, which is the opposite of how a headline rate is usually read.

The diagram above is the stack as it actually stands, action by action, and every column in it is a duty that has been applied. There is deliberately no column for Section 113, because there is nothing to draw yet.

The clock, and the steps that have to happen first

Read together, those four provisions describe a measure that is periodic and reversible rather than a single permanent rate. That matters for how far ahead it is worth pricing. A duty that can be adjusted above zero at any time and whose country list is revisited twice a year is not something a twelve-month fixed landed cost can absorb by guesswork.

• Enactment: 18 September 2026. The 30-day period in subsections (a) and (c)(1)(A) runs from that date, so it expires around 18 October 2026.
• Before any duty is imposed or its rate adjusted, subsection (g) requires a written justification to the appropriate congressional committees not later than 10 days beforehand. In practice that means a duty should be visible in advance rather than arriving unannounced.
• Subsection (b) lets the United States Trade Representative modify a rate at any time after the initial imposition, to anything greater than zero and up to 100 percent, on a written determination that a country has materially increased or decreased its Russian energy purchases. The rate is therefore a dial, not a switch.
• Subsection (e) requires the United States Trade Representative, with the Secretaries of State and Energy, to redetermine the five largest crude importers and the five largest gas importers within 180 days of the first imposition and every 180 days after that. A country can enter or leave the list at those points.

What it changes in a quote today, which is less than it sounds

Nothing in this Act changes a price at our end. It is not an Indian measure, it does not touch what cloth costs to weave in Bhilwara, and it does not change our export paperwork. It is a duty a US importer might pay at a US border, which means it lands on the buyer's side of the line on most Incoterms and not on ours. Which side that is in your own case depends on the term you bought on, and we set out where each one puts the duty in Incoterms explained for uniform fabric export.

The practical thing to review is not the price but the validity window around it. If you are a US buyer holding a quote, or about to place an order for delivery past the middle of October, the question to put to your customs broker is what your specific tariff lines would carry if a Section 113 rate were set, on top of the 10 percent that is already there. That is a question with a checkable answer, unlike the headline.

It is also worth keeping the direction of the year in view rather than reading one measure alone. A weaker rupee does not hand a buyer a discount, for reasons we set out in why a weaker rupee does not make Indian fabric cheaper for you, and the August trade figures, read in the currency they were published in, say the same thing from the other direction in India's August export figures are published in dollars. A duty at your own border is the one variable in that set that genuinely does move your landed cost, which is exactly why it is worth reading precisely rather than quickly.

What we are not saying

• We are not saying Indian goods will be tariffed at 100 percent. The statute sets a ceiling and a test, it names no country, and no determination has been published.
• We are not saying India will be listed. That turns on new purchase decisions taken after the 30-day clock and on an executive determination, neither of which had happened when this was written.
• We are not predicting a date or a rate. The only dates here are the ones in the text: enactment on 18 September 2026, a 30-day period from it, a 10-day notice before imposition, and 180-day redeterminations after the first one.
• We are not a customs adviser. Your tariff lines, your exemptions and your entry dates decide your position, and your broker is the person who can read them against the measure.