Trump’s Russian Diesel Deal Draws Gop, European Pushback — And Industry Shrug

President Donald Trump’s plan to buy Russian diesel is burning through political capital at home and abroad — despite industry skepticism that it will even materialize.

Since announcing Friday that Russia would supply millions of barrels of diesel to the United States and the world, Trump has shifted his focus to domestic supplies — announcing plans Wednesday to sell Alaskan natural gas to Taiwan, and even revisiting the idea of capping U.S. diesel exports that infuriated the oil industry last month. But Republican lawmakers and European allies are still focused on his Russia gambit.

“The deal you struck with President [Vladimir] Putin on October 9th will not achieve just ends, nor will it benefit Americans,” a bipartisan group of senators — including Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Alan Armstrong (R-Okla.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) — wrote in a letter Tuesday. “This deal is a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies; it should be rescinded.”

European leaders from Ireland to Latvia warned that Trump’s announcement would undermine Ukraine’s campaign against Russia. “This deal doesn’t help neither the price of oil products nor the unity of the transatlantic community,” said Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kęstutis Budrys.

But the move left the oil industry scratching its head, and the market shrugged off the move. Diesel prices fell only slightly after Trump’s announcement, before quickly resuming the upward trajectory they’ve been on since the administration launched attacks against Iran in a war that has since spread throughout the Middle East. Diesel remained at $6.30 per gallon on Wednesday, more than $2.60 per gallon higher than a year ago.

Oil industry representatives scoffed at the idea that importing Russian diesel would bring down prices at the pump. The United States is the world’s largest diesel exporter, shipping out many times more diesel every day than Russia could supply.

The amount of Russian diesel Trump touted Friday would be “insignificant” whether it entered the U.S. or global markets, said Ed Morse, a senior adviser at commodities firm Hartree Partner.

“What’s been done on the diesel side is a charade of embarrassing proportions,” Morse said at a Council on Foreign Relations event. “It’s not a real deal.”

The Russian deal comes after a string of other proposals the administration has made to lower diesel prices, including plans to release more tax-exempt fuel into the wider market and its pressure campaign to force European countries to release their own diesel reserves.

None have made a meaningful dent in diesel prices, which have stayed above $6 per gallon, according to AAA, since breaking the previous record of $5.81 last month. Those elevated prices have emerged as a painful problem for Trump and Republican members of Congress with the approach of mid-term elections in three weeks that hinge on affordability.

Experts say that the volumes Trump announced Russia would bring to the market are too small to have any serious impact on prices. Even if extra Russian supply caused prices to fall a few cents, the continuing war in the Middle East and Ukraine’s destruction of Russian fuel refineries would raise prices again soon thereafter, market analysts said.

“He wants lower diesel prices for rural America, where Republicans win 70 percent of the vote,” said Mark Pfeifle, a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush White House. “But the deal may save only a couple of cents a gallon after diesel prices have shot up $2.60 since war began.”

Republican criticism of Trump’s Russian diesel deal comes as GOP lawmakers distance themselves from a president whose popularity has sunk this year as prices soared, and as those same politicians start to focus on what politics will look like after Trump leaves office, said Brittany Martinez, a Republican strategist and executive director of Principles First, a conservative organization that has been critical of Trump.

“What we’re going to continue to see as time passes up until November and after is that there’s going to be more Republicans who are willing to be on-the-record and outspoken about some of the things that the president does,” Martinez said.

Trump on Monday brushed off criticism from lawmakers, saying “I think these are Republicans who can’t be serious.”

He also appeared to revive the idea of limiting U.S. exports of diesel fuel, an idea the administration had floated last month before the oil industry heavily lobbied against it.

“We could do a restriction, you know, a cap on diesel, keep it all for ourselves,” Trump said. “That would have a very big impact.”

The White House is saying that lowering prices remains a priority.

“President Trump successfully negotiated another great deal to supply the global market with massive amounts of diesel and bring prices down,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. She added that Trump “urges both sides of the Russia-Ukraine conflict to stop strikes against refineries, which are driving up costs and hurting American consumers.”

Russia has continued to export around 300,000 barrels a day to its close allies despite the damage to its refineries, Morse said, while the U.S. deal covers only about 70,000 barrels a day over the first month. The U.S. itself exports well over a million barrels of diesel a day, making any potential imports of Russian diesel comparatively minuscule.

Even if there was spare diesel to sell, many companies would be loath to transport it because of U.S. sanctions against such transactions, an executive at a U.S. oil company said.

“No one is talking about it here,” said the executive, granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the subject. “Who would touch it?”

Asked about whether it would enforce trade sanctions embedded in the law and what the waiver actually covers, the Treasury Department pointed to a social media post from the account of its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. It said, “The granting of this general license is consistent with similar actions previously taken by OFAC and is in compliance with all applicable laws.”

Pavan Acharya, James Bikales and Ben Lefebvre contributed to this report.