Critically examine the use of secondary tariffs as a tool of coercive economic diplomacy, with reference to the proposed U.S. Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026.

Secondary tariffs are duties imposed not on a sanctioned state but on third countries that keep trading with it, converting access to a large market into an instrument of sanctions enforcement. The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, passed by the U.S. Senate and pending before the House [2], would empower the President to levy tariffs of up to 100% on the top five purchasers of Russian crude oil and natural gas [1] — placing India squarely in its shadow.

The case for such tariffs

• Plugs sanctions leakage: primary sanctions fail when neutral buyers absorb discounted flows; the Bill pairs tariffs with measures against Russia's "shadow fleet" and Russian financial institutions [1].
• Low-cost coercion: leverage derives from market size rather than military commitment, making compliance cheaper than confrontation.
• Graded exits: periodic recalculation of the "top five" list and an exemption threshold for low Russian-gas dependence [1] leave targets a calibrated off-ramp.

Critical limitations

• Extraterritorial unilateralism: it penalises non-belligerent states and bypasses WTO dispute settlement, eroding rules-based trade.
• Misplaced burden: cumulating with the 10% Section 301 forced-labour duty imposed on 60 economies including India in July 2026 [3], the cost falls on labour-intensive exporters — textiles, gems, marine products — not on the sanctioned state.
• Questionable efficacy: crude is fungible; flows re-route rather than cease, while India's heavy crude import dependence [5] rules out rapid substitution.
• Strategic backfire: coercing a strategic partner strains convergence in the Indo-Pacific and accelerates de-dollarisation and rupee-settlement experiments.

Secondary tariffs thus buy short-term leverage at the cost of long-term trust and trade multilateralism. For India, the durable answer is not concession but resilience — export-market diversification supported by liberalised ECGC country ratings [4], an early India-U.S. bilateral trade agreement, and improved domestic competitiveness — turning a coercive shock into momentum for a diversified, rules-based trading future.