Lindsey Graham: The US lawmaker who is pushing for 500% tariffs on India

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is among those pushing sanctions on Russia and its partners.

Graham, a foreign policy hawk, is pushing a new sanctions bill that would allow the United States to impose massive tariffs of up to 500 per cent on those who buy Russian crude oil, including India. Graham has accused India and other nations of funding Russia’s war in Ukraine by buying cheap Russian oil.

Graham has claimed that the Indian ambassador, during their meeting last month in Washington, requested Trump to lower tariffs on India and that New Delhi was buying less Russian oil than before. Trump too claimed that Modi knew he was “not happy” with India buying Russian oil.

Graham has had a long, twisting political journey. The Republican senator who ran for president in 2015 was at one point an avowed Trump critic. However, over the past decade, Graham has emerged as one of Trump’s strongest defenders. But how did Graham make his journey from Trump’s skeptic to sidekick?

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Let’s take a closer look.

An avowed Trump skeptic

A decade ago, Graham was known as an establishment Republican. He was seen as strong on foreign policy and had a reputation for being willing to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats. He was also regarded as someone with strong foreign policy bona fides.

Back then, Graham was a fierce opponent of Trump. The US Republican senator, who announced his candidacy for US president in 2016, was best friends with US Senator John McCain. The first fissure came after Trump derided McCain, Graham’s mentor and the 2008 Republican nominee for president against Barack Obama, as a loser.

Trump infamously mocked McCain for his military service, saying he did not like war heroes who were captured. Graham responded to the remarks by describing Trump as a “jackass”, “crazy”, and “one of the dumbest human beings you’ve ever met”. On the campaign trail, he derided Trump as a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot”. He told voters, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.”

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Trump responded by giving out Graham’s private number publicly and urging his followers to call Graham. While Trump’s remarks on McCain led to significant blowback from establishment Republicans, they did nothing to derail Trump’s 2016 bid for the White House. Graham, prior to the 2016 election, publicly announced he would vote for neither Donald Trump nor Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Graham, in a Time Magazine interview, outlined his problems with Trump. “I just don’t believe Donald Trump is a reliable conservative Republican. Good luck with Paul Ryan trying to find a conservative agenda with this guy. And I don’t think he has the temperament or judgment to be commander in chief,” he said.

Graham outlined a long list of reasons why he could not support Trump in the 2016 election. “He lost me when he said my friend John McCain was a loser because he was captured as a POW. He lost me when he accused George W Bush of lying to the American people about the Iraq War, and he thinks Putin’s a good guy, so I just can’t go there.”

“I just believe his temperament and judgment are not sufficient to be commander in chief of the finest fighting force in the world. I think his foreign policy is gibberish,” Graham added.

In fact, after Trump secured the Republican nomination, Graham on social media posted what would arguably be his most famous quote: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed … and we will deserve it.” After the election, Graham announced that he voted for Independent candidate Evan McMullin.

Graham changes tune

However, after emerging victorious in a shock election in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, Trump began consolidating much of the power in the Republican Party. Much of this was down to his popularity with the Republican base, with polls showing that as many as nine out of ten Republican voters had a positive view of Trump.

It was in 2017 that Graham first began changing his tune on the US president. By 2018, not only was Graham one of Trump’s most ardent backers in the US Senate, he had also declared that he was endorsing Trump’s 2020 bid.

The hearings over Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault, further brought the two men together. “This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” Graham said, as he played a key role in rallying Republican senators behind Kavanaugh’s nomination.

“I don’t think there’s any room in the party for wanting him to fail,” Graham, a South Carolina Republican and now a chief Trump ally, told CNN. “If they see your criticism is designed to want him to fail or not support him, then you’re in trouble. Most people in that room want me to stay close to the President.”

Much of this was down to his home state of South Carolina, a ruby-red state where Trump was exceedingly popular and where Graham was up for re-election in 2020.

Though Graham denied it had anything to do with politics, telling CNN, “I’ve come to like the President,” and adding, “I want to show the people of South Carolina who elected me that I’m mature – that I will accept defeat because I ran against him.”

By 2019, Trump was facing trouble over Ukraine. Democrats had opened impeachment proceedings into the president over claims that Trump had tried to pressure Volodymyr Zelenskyy to come up with dirt on Joe Biden, who had entered the 2020 race for president. Graham responded by attacking the Democrats, saying they “had lost their minds” and that “there’s nothing there” when it came to any quid pro quo between Trump and Zelenskyy.

Fallout after insurrection at Capitol, return to fold

However, Graham flip-flopped on Trump after the insurrection at the US Capitol in 2021. Trump supporters had stormed the seat of power after their candidate lost his 2020 re-election bid to Biden.

“All I can say is, count me out. Enough is enough … It is over,” Graham said on the floor of Congress. “Trump, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way. Oh my God, I hate it … but today, all I can say is ‘Count me out. Enough is enough. I’ve tried to be helpful.’”

He also labelled the Trump supporters “domestic terrorists” and said they needed to be sitting in a jail cell.

Graham reiterated that Biden and Kamala Harris had won the election. “I prayed Joe Biden would lose. He won. He’s the legitimate president of the United States. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are lawfully elected and will become the president and vice president of the United States on January 20,” Graham said.

However, Graham’s change of heart would not last. Days after Biden and Kamala Harris were sworn in as president and vice president, Graham was cornered and heckled by irate Trump supporters at Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington. One protester called him a “traitor”, while another woman yelled, “You know it was rigged! It’s gonna be like this wherever you go for the rest of your life. Audit the vote!”

Graham later flew down to Mar-a-Lago to pay homage to Trump and played golf with the then former president. He also served as an informal adviser to Trump’s Senate impeachment defence team, helping coordinate strategy. He publicly backed Trump, saying, “There is no way we can achieve our goals without” him.

Graham, during Trump’s second impeachment trial over the insurrection at the US Capitol, voted to acquit Trump. Since then, Graham has been a full-throated booster of Trump and a constant presence at his side, particularly during Trump’s first term. He has frequently taken to the Sunday shows to defend Trump and the administration.

Why the change?

Many put it down to naked political opportunism.

For example, former Democratic senator Al Franken told R_olling Stone Magazine_ that Graham frequently joked about being a political cynic and being able to go with the current flow of politics.

Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who advised McCain during his 2008 bid against Obama, was far more critical. Schmidt told the outlet Graham was essentially a “pilot fish”.

“People try to analyze Lindsey through the prism of the manifest inconsistencies that exist between things that he used to believe and what he’s doing now… What he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish: a smaller fish that hovers about a larger predator, like a shark, living off of its detritus. That’s Lindsey. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsey took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsey fish hovering about, and Trump’s the newest shark in the sea.”

With the Trump administration eyeing possible strikes on Iran, which has long been Graham’s objective, it seems unlikely the Republican senator will break from Trump again.

With inputs from agencies