Jeffries voices ‘serious concerns’ with Senate-passed Russian sanctions bill

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday voiced strong reservations with a Senate-passed bill that would slap new sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil amid Moscow’s war with Ukraine.

While Jeffries stopped short of opposing the bill outright, he warned that it could ratify President Trump’s tariff agenda in ways that ultimately make life more expensive for Americans.

“We haven’t had a conversation about it yet,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol, explaining that both Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have both expressed “strong opposition” to the bill.

“Because it risks providing tariff and sanctions authority to Donald Trump and his administration that we believe they will abuse,” Jeffries continued. “And so, I have some serious concerns with the legislation.”

The reservations predict a tougher path for the bill in the House than it found in the Senate, where the proposal passed easily by a bipartisan vote of 86-11 earlier this month. Championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the legislation would apply new penalties on those countries that continue to purchase Russian oil, gas and other products that are helping fund Russia’s years-long war with Ukraine.

The bill is backed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in Washington for parts of the Senate debate. And some Democratic senators are now pressing House lawmakers of all stripes to pass the bill quickly as a way to hobble Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ability to wage the war.

“It is a moment of extreme urgency, for the reason that Putin may try to escalate, but also because Putin is on his heels economically,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Sunday in an interview with CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

“And this kind of sanctions bill, throttling the flow of revenue to his war machine, could undercut completely his ability to wage this brutal, murderous war,” the Connecticut senator added.

Jeffries has long supported Zelensky and the Ukrainians as they battle to keep their autonomy — support he amplified on Monday even as he highlighted the Democratic concerns about providing Trump with more tariff powers.

“Our record on that … has been very clear,” he said. “We’ll take a look at the sanctions bill and have a caucus conversation about it.”

It’s unclear if or when the legislation will reach the floor in the House. Lawmakers in the lower chamber returned to Washington on Monday after a long summer break, but the Russia sanctions bill is not on the legislative calendar.