President Trump said Friday that his administration reached an agreement with Russia to supply diesel fuel to the U.S. and global markets, a surprise pivot that he cast as part of an effort to lower prices for American farmers and households.
The move, which included suspending sanctions on Russian diesel exports for about six months, comes as Trump and the Republican Party are struggling to address voter worries over surging diesel and gasoline prices just weeks before the midterm elections.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said that Russia would immediately supply over 300,000 tons of diesel fuel into the U.S. and global markets, another 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million "immediately thereafter." He added that Russia would also later deliver an additional 3 million tons of diesel "within a short period of time," based on the condition of its refineries.
The Kremlin didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment about the deal.
Russia measures diesel quantities in tons; the volumes that Trump said it would provide over time amount to roughly 36 million barrels overall. Some refineries are offline in the Middle East and Russia and the world is short about 1.6 million barrels of diesel per day as a result, the International Energy Agency said last month. The new supplies from Russia, if they were all released simultaneously, would plug the gap for about three weeks.
"Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority," Trump said on Truth Social.
Wars in the Middle East and Ukraine have sent diesel costs sharply higher, with U.S. prices hitting an average of $6.28 a gallon as of Friday, up from $3.68 a year ago, according to AAA. While surging gasoline prices in the wake of the U.S. war with Iran have hit voters nationwide, rising diesel prices have hurt farm states in particular, helping stoke Republicans' worries that they will lose both the House and Senate this fall.
Moscow suspended diesel exports earlier this year following Ukraine's strikes against Russian refineries. The Russian domestic supply crunch was caused in part by dwindling supply while demand picked up during the country's massive wheat harvesting season.
The White House has been seeking to jump-start peace talks around Russia's war with Ukraine, which have consistently faltered. Washington's approach to those talks have centered heavily on business and potential energy deals between U.S. and Russian businesses.
After Trump's announcement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that any easing of sanctions on Russia would play into Putin's hands. "Russia will 'repay' the diesel with further terror and perfidy," he wrote in a social-media post. "Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged. What is needed is real de-escalation with Russia on a reciprocal basis."
In a statement published on social media after Trump's post, the Treasury Department said the Office of Foreign Assets Control, at Trump's direction, issued a temporary license to allow Russian diesel on the global market. In a filing, the office said select U.S. sanctions tied to the sale of Russian diesel would be waived until April.
Clayton Seigle, a nonresident scholar in energy security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the deal benefits Russia by allowing it to sell diesel its domestic market couldn't otherwise absorb in the winter months. "With this arrangement Russia could export more than 100,000 barrels per day of diesel to world markets," he said.
Late last month the Russian government extended its suspension of diesel exports until Oct. 31. Putin said at a conference earlier this month that Russia had enough diesel reserves for itself. Irrespective of Moscow's own suspension measures, however, Putin said that Russian diesel wouldn't likely reappear on global markets "because sanctions are in force regarding our oil and oil products."
Before Ukraine's campaign to strike Moscow's refineries, Russia produced between 85 million and 90 million tons of diesel a year, with domestic consumption reaching just less than two-thirds of that. Since then, six refineries that produce about half of Russia's diesel capacity were hit by Ukrainian strikes.
Some analysts are skeptical that Russia can export this much diesel due to the poor state of the refineries and its own export restrictions. "It's unclear to me how much additional supplies the world is actually going to get," said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates in Houston.