Trump strikes deal with Putin for Russian diesel in sharp reversal of US policy ahead of midterms

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said he has struck a deal to ob­tain diesel from Rus­sia, a stun­ning re­ver­sal of years of U.S. pres­sure on Moscow over its war with Ukraine and an at­tempt to ad­dress high fu­el prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elec­tions.

Trump said on so­cial me­dia on Fri­day that he struck the deal with Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin in a phone call in which he was ex­pect­ed to dis­cuss a sus­pect­ed case of plague in Rus­sia. In­stead, Trump an­nounced that Rus­sia will im­me­di­ate­ly sup­ply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, fol­lowed by an ad­di­tion­al 500,000 tons in No­vem­ber and 1 mil­lion tons “im­me­di­ate­ly there­after.” Rus­sia will de­liv­er an ad­di­tion­al 3 mil­lion tons “with­in a short pe­ri­od of time” af­ter that, he wrote.

Trump’s shock­ing an­nounce­ment comes af­ter he signed a sweep­ing Rus­sia sanc­tions law last month that aimed at clamp­ing down on Rus­sia’s en­er­gy rev­enues, among oth­er ar­eas, that fu­el its war against Ukraine.