This month, after a phone call with the Russian dictator, the president of the United States announced Russia would supply American and global markets with diesel fuel, and hethanked Putin by name for the favor.
The Treasuryissued a general license authorizing Russian diesel imports through next April. America is now buying fuel from the authoritarian regime that invaded Ukraine.
Our president may be grateful, but we should be ashamed.
Trump's Russian diesel deal undercuts his own sanctions
Start with the law.
On Sept. 18, President Donald Trump signed theGraham Sanctioning Russia Act, built to strangle the energy revenue funding Putin's war. The act orders tariffs of up to 500% on Russian goods, petroleum products included, and 100% on the biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas.
paying the price for Trump in the midterms
The president could lawfully waive those duties, but only bycertifying to Congress in writing that a waiver serves the national interest, with a report explaining why. On Friday, two days before the first duties took effect, he did exactly that.
A singleexecutive order wrote the act's duties into policy and waived them, along with most of its sanctions, in the next breath. The waivers name no deadline. They run until the president or his secretary of state decides otherwise. Marco Rubio's60-day pause appears nowhere in the order.
Twelve senators haddemanded that Trump rescind the deal, and Thom Tillis said the presidentmay be breaking the law. He was not breaking it. He was nullifying it on a certification that never says what national interest the waiver serves.
The toughest Russia sanctions law in American history survived 28 days and died before it ever took effect.
Trump's diesel deal offers little relief and a lifeline to Putin
Consider what America got for this surrender. Russia's opening shipment is300,000 tons of diesel, a quantity this country burns through in13 hours of American consumption. It will not lower prices a trucker could measure.
It hands Putin hard currency and relieves pressure on Russian refineries. It tells every country we threatened with tariffs for buying Russian energy that the threats were theater. The Kremlin is not hiding its delight. Putin's envoy alreadypitches the diesel deal as the template for broader cooperation. Volodymyr Zelensky called it a"weak decision by a strong partner" that provides extra money for the war.
The political desperation fueling the deal is no mystery.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported prices up 3.7% over the past year, with gasoline up 9.1% in one month and energy up 5.2%. Inflation is outrunning wages again; two weeks before midterms, the President's party is positioned to lose.
A president confident about November does not court Moscow for a fuel shipment too small to matter. A politically unpopular one does and calls it strength.
Putin's actions expose the weakness of Trump's approach
The humiliation compounds.
Days after the deal, President Trump announcedan energy ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, effective immediately. Ukraine had not been informed. Within hours, Russian missiles and drones struck Ukrainian power plants in an assault Zelensky said left600,000 people without electricity.
The Kremlin explained Moscow could not violate a ceasefire that had never been specified. Asked about the wreckage, the president shrugged that there had been"violations on both sides" and mused that Putin wants a deal more than Zelensky does. Putin did the same in January and September.
A superpower's word is supposed to mean something. Ours now comes with a shrug and excuses.
Russia is helping Iran while Trump rewards Moscow
Meanwhile, in Iran, where Americans are actually fighting, Russia is on the other side.
Western officials report Moscow hassupplied Iran with intelligence to track and target American forces. Moscow has also shared drone components and battlefield guidance. Eighteen American service members have died in that conflict. Iranian drones built on Russian improvements have struck American positions and, analysts believe, a CIA station in Riyadh.
Confronted about it, the president saidhe does not believe Russia is helping Iran at all, because Moscow would have too much to lose. Trump has given Russia a valuable economic lifeline instead.
Staying out of Ukraine's war does not mean financing Putin
Let me concede what deserves conceding.
A reasonable American can oppose direct involvement in Ukraine. That position has honest roots, and many patriots hold it without any sympathy for Moscow. Many of us had hoped the administration would honor its word on extricating America from open-ended foreign entanglements.
But there is a bright line between staying out of a war and climbing in on the wrong side. Waiving our own sanctions to finance the aggressor crosses it, and so does shielding Russian refineries from Ukrainian strikes while Russia bombs Ukrainian power plants.
Threatening India with ruinous tariffs for buying Russian fuel, weeks before buying it ourselves, is hypocrisy on autopilot.
Neutrality does not require bankrolling the villain of this story, and Putin is the villain, a Soviet relic trying to rebuild an empire on Ukrainian graves. Iargued in August that Ukraine's fight is a test of American values.
This month the president is failing it intentionally.
Americans should loudly demand that Trump uphold Russian sanctions, starting with Republicans who voted for the Graham Act and meant it. Some already have: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruzcalled the waiver a mistake, and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn wrote that "Lindsey would be appalled."
A party that stays silent while its president finances Putin's war and thanks him for the privilege has traded its inheritance for 13 hours of diesel.
Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an evil empire and worked to bankrupt it. Trump is now helping that empire’s heir make payroll.
USA TODAY Network Tennessee columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney raising four boys in Nolensville with his particularly patient wife, Justine. Send outrage or agreement to smith.david.cameron@gmail.com or @DCameronSmith on X. Agree or disagree? Send a letter to the editor at letters@tennessean.com.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Trump is buying Russian diesel while Putin wages war | Opinion
