Diesel prices remain high despite deal, adding to GOP midterm challenge
With two weeks to go before the midterm elections, President Trump’s agreement to buy Russian diesel fuel and his instruction to the Treasury Department to pause implementation of a congressional sanctions package targeting Russian oil and gas buyers have opened an intra-party split, with several Republican candidates and incumbents breaking with him publicly rather than defending the moves.
Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers, locked in a tight race against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, said Sunday on CNN that he opposes the diesel purchase and objects to the president’s decision to pause the sanctions package that Congress passed just over a month ago. “It’s just not where I would be,” Rogers said. “I would have voted for the sanctions bill. If the president has a better idea to get diesel prices down, I’d be for it. I’m just a little skeptical that this will work in the way that the administration wants it to work.” He added: “I don’t think we can give Putin an inch.”
Trump defended his recent decisions in a Sunday social-media post, saying he was in the process of “negotiating Peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine” and did not want to do anything that would “drive, foolishly, Russia away from the bargaining table.” The president provided no details about any diplomatic progress being made.
Other Republicans echoed similar qualms. Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan, facing a competitive re-election contest, said Saturday he would tell Trump not to buy Russian diesel fuel. Instead, Sullivan called for continued efforts to expand energy production in Alaska and strengthen the U.S. military — “hard power things Putin understands the most,” he said. Iowa GOP Senate candidate Ashley Hinson said during a debate last week: “We need to lower gas prices in this country. We need to lower diesel prices, but I don’t think we need to be making a deal with Russia to do it.”
Administration officials defended the policy on the Sunday television shows. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, asked about the Russian energy moves on ABC’s “This Week,” said: “This is a carrot to try to end a war. It’s not an economic lifeline for Russia.” The Wall Street Journal reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday defended Trump’s decision to halt implementation of the new sanctions, characterizing the move as a prudent step while the administration weighs the implications of moving ahead with the measures amid pressure on the U.S. and global economies from multiple fronts — including the Iran conflict, Russia’s war with Ukraine and hostilities between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said Trump is “trying to walk this fine balance between trying to be able to put pressure on Russia but also to be able to help the American people.”
The diesel deal itself was struck in a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin and announced by Trump earlier this month alongside an instruction to the Treasury Department to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports until early April. Trump heralded the agreement in a social-media post, writing: “Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” — adding that millions of tons of Russian diesel fuel would flow into the world market. Diesel prices have not moved significantly lower since the deal, a meaningful concern given diesel’s role as a vital input for trucking, agriculture, construction and industrial activity. Analysts say the broader fuel-cost pressure stems in large part from the stalemated war with Iran and Tehran’s continued threats to international shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
The war has continued. Putin ignored Trump’s call a week ago for an “energy ceasefire” under which Russia and Ukraine were to pause strikes on each other’s energy facilities. Ukraine paused its attacks on Russian refineries after Trump’s request but resumed them several days later after Russia continued its widespread attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Ukraine carried out a large drone attack this weekend on an oil terminal and a data center in St. Petersburg, described by Russian media as one of Kyiv’s biggest drone strikes this year. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media the same day that discussions with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff have continued.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has rarely deviated from Trump’s positions, told Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that the president’s decision to waive the sanctions would be a subject for further discussion with the White House. “Congress voted on this decisively several weeks ago,” Johnson said. “We understand Putin can’t be trusted. But I told the White House team that we need to talk about it and I think carefully consider the unintended consequences that may ensue from that. So I know the president’s evaluating this, as he does everything else.”
Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor, said Trump’s diesel diplomacy risks backfiring by conveying the impression that the White House has neither a viable plan to reduce fuel costs nor an effective foreign policy to quell the fighting in Ukraine. The dilemma for many Republicans in the midterms, Zelizer said, is that their party is led by a president who insists on loyalty but is also “the greatest source of their electoral vulnerability.”