WASHINGTON, January 8. /TASS/. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham (included in the Russian list of terrorists and extremists) said US President Donald Trump had spoken in favor of toughening anti-Russian sanctions.

"After a very productive meeting today with President Trump on a variety of issues, he greenlit the bipartisan Russia sanctions bill that I have been working on for months with Senator [Richard] Blumenthal and many others," Graham wrote on the X social network. "I look forward to a strong bipartisan vote, hopefully as early as next week."

Graham believes that the bill, if adopted, will give Trump "tremendous leverage" against Russian trade partners like China, India and Brazil to incentivize them to stop buying Russian oil.

The bill in question was endorsed in early April by a bipartisan group of senators led by Graham and Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut. The measure envisages secondary sanctions against Russia’s trading partners, such as a 500% tariff on imports to the United States from countries that purchase oil, gas, uranium, and other goods from Russia.

On November 17, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would perceive the approval of the bill extremely negatively.