ANKARA, Turkey -- A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is planning to lobby for passage of long-stalled legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia during a meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the sidelines of the annual NATO summit.

The lawmakers said they are set to meet with Bessent on Tuesday night at a dinner hosted by Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey. The legislation, originally co-sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), allows the president to impose sanctions and tariffs on countries that do business with Russia, including any nation that buys Russian oil and uranium.

While the bill has wide bipartisan support, it has languished in Congress amid resistance from the White House, which has sought to weaken some of the legislation's language to give the president more latitude to negotiate with Moscow over Ukraine peace talks.

The Treasury Department and the White House didn't respond to requests for comment.

Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.) said in an interview that lawmakers plan to make their case for the legislation during the dinner, arguing that it needs further support from the president to secure passage in the Senate.

Coons said the lawmakers also plan to urge Bessent not to extend any additional sanctions waivers for Russian oil. In the aftermath of the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the Treasury Department issued three consecutive 30-day sanctions waivers for Russian oil in a bid to ease the global energy-supply crunch. The last waiver expired in June.

Proponents of the Graham-Blumenthal sanctions bill said the only way to get Russia to seriously consider peace talks is to impose painful economic and military pressure on Moscow. Having Trump's buy-in on the bill is crucial, they argued.

"It doesn't do any good to have the bill done unless the president is prepared to execute on it. It is a matter of we want an affirmative saying, 'Look, I agree with you, give me that stuff and I'll execute it, '" said Sen. Mike Rounds, (R., S.D.), a member of the NATO congressional delegation.

Graham said earlier this year that Trump had "greenlit" the sanctions bill and the president said in 2025 he was fine with Congress moving ahead with the legislation.

But progress on the bill has slowed in recent months without a full-throated endorsement from Trump and amid efforts by the White House to change the bill's text. Shortly after Graham announced the president was supportive of the legislation, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) said he believed the bill had to originate in the House. The House has the constitutional prerogative to initiate bills that deal with federal revenue.

Thune now has to contend with a packed Senate calendar that leaves little room to bring the bill to the floor for a vote ahead of contentious midterm elections. Pro-Ukraine lawmakers hope a forceful endorsement of the legislation from Trump could jolt the Senate to action, given his outsize influence over the Republican Party and its congressional priorities.

Pro-Ukraine lawmakers in the U.S. have grown increasingly frustrated with the president, who has at times disparaged Kyiv and clashed with the country's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky. Some lawmakers have urged the president to ratchet up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, arguing that this is the only way to end the war.

Trump, who repeatedly boasted that he could solve the Russia-Ukraine war on "day one" of his second term, has so far failed to achieve significant breakthroughs.

The U.S. president told reporters at the NATO summit on Tuesday that he had spoken separately with Putin and Zelensky a day earlier.

Graham and Blumenthal introduced the bill in 2025, and it quickly garnered more than 80 co-sponsors in the Senate. The bill allows the president to impose steep tariffs on Russian imports and secondary sanctions on countries that buy Russian oil, gas or uranium in a bid to choke off the primary revenue streams for Moscow's war machine.

U.S. officials and congressional aides said there are ongoing discussions with the White House on how to change the language of the bill so it would be acceptable to both the administration and a swath of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. Trump administration officials want to ensure the president wouldn't be constrained by the legislation in his efforts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

The war in Ukraine is expected to be a major discussion topic at the NATO summit in Ankara this week. Trump on Tuesday told reporters he spoke with Putin and plans to meet with Zelensky at the summit. "They both want to get it settled now," he said.

U.S. allies in Europe, rattled by Trump's plans to pare back U.S. commitments to NATO, are expected to push the president to expand support for Ukraine during the summit.

Rounds said Republicans remain committed to both the NATO alliance and supporting Ukraine. "Two-thirds of our members or better show support, a strong support, for not only NATO but support for Ukraine as well, and I don't expect that to change," he said.

Write to Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 07, 2026 13:10 ET (17:10 GMT)

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