Republican lawmaker Lindsey Graham, who died on Saturday at the age of 71, had a major influence on corporate tax rates, tariff policies, and defense spending.
Graham’s office said in a statement on Sunday that the four-term senator died after a “brief and sudden” illness. Graham, an ally of President Donald Trump, had just returned from a trip to Kyiv, where he had met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
In his 23 years in the Senate, Graham helped shape a protectionist, national-security-driven approach to trade and business-friendly policies that lowered corporate tax rates. His interventionist foreign policy views also translated into support for increased defense spending. Billions of dollars in military spending ultimately flowed to his home state of South Carolina.
Here’s how the late lawmaker impacted American businesses and the US economy.
Corporate taxes
Graham was instrumental in pushing corporate tax cuts through Congress over the last decade. He was a major supporter of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.
During Graham’s unsuccessful 2016 run for president, he made cutting corporate taxes a central part of his campaign. During a Republican primary debate in 2015, Graham argued that the corporate tax rate should be lowered to prevent businesses from relocating overseas and to help create jobs for middle-class Americans.
“The best way to grow the middle class is to make it a good place to create a job,” he said during a debate at the time.
During Trump’s second term, Graham, who chaired the Senate Budget Committee, helped clear a path in Congress for the president’s 2025 tax-and-spending package, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill, which made permanent many of the corporate tax cuts the two leaders spearheaded in 2017 and restored or expanded other business-friendly policies.
Nine days before his death, the senator published a statement celebrating the first anniversary of making those tax cuts permanent.
“One year ago, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill into law, delivering the largest tax cut for working and middle-class families in American history,” Graham wrote. “As the Senate Budget Chairman, I was proud to lead this effort alongside my Senate and House Republican colleagues. We also ended taxes on tips and overtime and delivered no taxes on Social Security benefits for over 35 million seniors.”
Fair trade
While a broad supporter of free trade policies, Graham broke from some other Republicans in his calls to use tariffs to punish countries that, in his view, operated unfairly.
In 2005, during his first term in the Senate, Graham called for aggressive tariffs against China for manipulating currency and stealing intellectual property. His views helped influence Trump’s own tariff policies, which became a pillar of his administration’s strategy in his second term.
Graham, like Trump, argued that tariffs should be used as leverage over other governments. Graham supported using tariffs to force countries like Mexico and Canada to increase border security, both as a way to manage illegal immigration and stem the flow of fentanyl into the country.
Trump’s sweeping tariffs ultimately caused some headaches for American businesses, which struggled with supply chain uncertainties and rising prices. And the Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to unilaterally issue sweeping tariffs on US imports was illegal.
In response to that ruling, Graham said it was “undeniable” that the tariffs were having their intended effect.
“One of the chief reasons that our border is so secure is President Trump threatened to put tariffs on countries that were allowing illegal immigrants to pour in through our southern border and held them accountable for the problem,” Graham wrote in a statement. “When it comes to finding fentanyl and other dangerous products coming into the country, President Trump has used tariffs extremely effectively.”
Defense spending
Graham was one of the Senate’s most vocal advocates for increased defense spending.
After the Trump administration outlined its initial 2027 budget plans, which included a total request for $1.5 trillion for the US military, the largest single-year military funding in modern US history and a near 45% increase from the previous year, Graham called Trump “second to none” on national security.
“President Trump’s budget is truly historic when it comes to defense spending. It is the most robust increase in defense spending in many years, and it is more than justified by the threats we face throughout the world,” he wrote in a statement in April.
Graham’s support for robust defense spending stemmed from his interventionist views on national security. He supported the Iraq war and opposed the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He supported Ukraine and called for sweeping sanctions and tariffs on Russia, as well as any country buying Russian oil. He also backed military support for Israel and the continuing war on Iran.
His support for military spending also benefited his home state of South Carolina, which grew a large military footprint during Graham’s time in the Senate. In 2024, South Carolina received nearly $7 billion in military spending through things like payroll, contracts, and construction, according to the Defense Department.
A 2022 state-commissioned study found that the military supported over 250,000 jobs in the states and generated an annual economic impact of some $35 billion.
Federal defense dollars have supported major bases, nuclear-weapons work, and aviation manufacturing in South Carolina. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Graham pushed money toward construction and military programs that helped secure and expand bases like Fort Jackson and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort.
In 2023, Graham said his work to bring military spending to South Carolina “will pay dividends for our state for years to come.”
