Sen. Graham introduces legislation to end financial support for Iranian regime

US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Wednesday introduced legislation to hold countries accountable for financially supporting Iran.

Graham noted in a statement that during the Trump Administration, Iranian crude exports dropped as low as 300,000 barrels per day. According to United Against Nuclear Iran, under the Biden Administration, Iran exported nearly 1.4 million barrels of oil a day in October 2023 alone.

The Tariffs For Terrorism Act of 2024 would require the President to identify countries that purchase, trade, consume or import crude oil or petroleum products from Iran and subsequently impose tariffs on products imported into the US from those countries.

“After many discussions with President Trump, I’m introducing legislation to impose tariffs on countries that purchase petroleum products from Iran,” said Senator Graham.

“It is long past time to make those that enrich this terrorist regime pay a price, and there’s no better price than tariffs on products coming into the United States. On day one, President Trump will re-impose maximum pressure on Iran. Tariffs on countries that empower terrorism and the Ayatollah is a good place to start,” he added.

Graham’s statement noted that since the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has engaged in acts of international terrorism and continuously threatened the US, Israel and other allies and partners of the United States. Iran has been a designated state sponsor of terrorism under US law since January 19, 1984.

“To date,” the statement said, “oil sanctions have been ineffective in deterring the Ayatollah’s malign activity. The Iranian Regime uses billions of dollars of oil profits to finance proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The Ayatollah is also sprinting toward a nuclear bomb. Recently, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Iran has narrowed their nuclear breakout time – the time it takes to produce enough weapons grade uranium to make a nuclear bomb – to approximately one to two weeks.”

Recent reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicate that Iran has accelerated its uranium enrichment.

A report from late June by the UN atomic energy found that Iran has installed half the advanced uranium-enriching machines it said earlier it would quickly add to its Fordow site but has not yet brought them online.

The IAEA's previous report determined that Iran has started up new cascades of advanced centrifuges and plans to install others in the coming weeks after facing criticism over its nuclear program.

When Trump was President, he withdrew the US from the 2015 nuclear agreement signed between Iran and world powers.

The Biden administration sought to return to the deal and held indirect talks with Iran on a return to compliance, but the negotiations reached a stalemate last September, after Iran submitted an unsatisfactory response to a European Union proposal to revive the deal.