{"id":227155,"date":"2026-10-11T02:10:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-11T02:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/why-is-us-turning-to-russia-for-diesel-despite-sanctions-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2026-10-11T02:10:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-11T02:10:39","slug":"why-is-us-turning-to-russia-for-diesel-despite-sanctions-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/why-is-us-turning-to-russia-for-diesel-despite-sanctions-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is US turning to Russia for diesel despite sanctions? – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s annoucement comes amid surging fuel prices and looming US midterm elections.<\/em>
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United States President Donald Trump says he has agreed a deal<\/a> to release stocks of diesel fuel from Russia to try to ease high fuel costs in the US before November\u2019s midterm elections.
However analysts told Al Jazeera that the deal will likely have little effect on easing the global energy crisis while European countries could refuse to buy from Russia altogether.
The agreement comes despite years of sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine, the latest of which were announced last month by the US and specifically targeted buyers of Russian oil<\/a>.
Here\u2019s what we know:
On Friday night, Trump announced on social media that after a \u201chighly successful discussion\u201d with Russian President Vladimir Putin, it had been agreed that Russia would \u201cimmediately\u201d supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel fuel to the US and global marketplace.
Another 500,000 tonnes would be released in November, and a further 1 million tonnes sometime after that, Trump said. He added that, based on the current condition of its diesel refineries, Russia would then deliver another 3 million tonnes of diesel.
Trump claimed that this move, along with what he described as \u201ctotal control\u201d by the US of the Strait of Hormuz, would bring down diesel prices in the US and the rest of the world.
\u201cLower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority,\u201d he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform.
Trump later thanked Putin for the deal, telling reporters outside the White House on Friday: \u201cTo be honest, we have massive amounts of oil coming into our country, and it\u2019s diesel which is what we want.\u201d
Putin said<\/a> in a statement on Friday that Russia \u201cconfirmed its willingness to supply oil and petroleum products to the US market and global markets at large\u201d.
Global fuel prices have surged as a result of both the US-Israel war on Iran and Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine. Tehran has largely closed off the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world\u2019s oil and gas supplies had been shipped in peacetime, since the US and Israel first launched strikes on Iran in February.
The recent attack on Saudi Arabia\u2019s East-West Pipeline<\/a>, another key oil export route from the Gulf, as well as attacks by Yemen\u2019s Houthis around the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb strait have compounded supply disruptions.
Meanwhile, oil refineries and energy and port facilities have come under heavy attack in both Russia and Ukraine.
Global fuel inventories have plummeted, and diesel prices reached record highs in both the US and Europe in September.
Last week, the Group of Seven countries agreed to release 100 million barrels of emergency reserves of diesel and crude oil after a US pressure campaign on the European Union in which the Trump administration threatened a US ban on its diesel exports.
Hamad Hussain, a climate and commodities economist at Capital Economics, told Al Jazeera last week that the impact of the G7 release \u201cwould be short-lived given that this is just a temporary solution to the supply crunch\u201d.
Surging diesel prices in the US saw the national average rise to a record $6.52 a gallon (3.79 litres) in September, more than twice the price from a year earlier. The national average is currently $6.20, according to<\/a> the American Automobile Association (AAA).
The US is the world\u2019s largest diesel exporter. Its inventories have fallen sharply since the Iran war began and remain below normal levels despite refiners increasing their output.
In September, US lawmakers and Trump floated restricting diesel exports in a bid to lower consumer costs. Trump also called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt attacks on diesel fuel targets, accusing him of causing a shortage after Ukraine ramped up its strikes on Russia\u2019s oil industry this year, aiming to disrupt its energy industry, which it uses to fund its war effort. Trump did not single Russia out for similar treatment over its attacks on Ukraine\u2019s energy infrastructure.
Trump is particularly concerned about bringing down the price of diesel before the US midterm elections. The Iran war is already deeply unpopular and many small-business owners in his MAGA (Make America Great Again) support base rely on diesel being affordable.
Consumers are feeling the effects of rising prices as diesel is used by truckers to transport food and products and by farmers operating machinery. The latest Pew Research Center polling<\/a> indicated that the economy is the most important issue for 84 percent of registered voters.
States that voted for Trump and typically support candidates from his Republican Party, like Iowa and Kansas, are now seen as battlegrounds in the November 3 elections, putting Trump under pressure to avoid a Republican defeat.<\/p>\n

The US banned imports of Russian oil and gas in 2022 under the Biden administration in response to the invasion of Ukraine in February that year.
A sweeping Russian sanctions law passed in Congress last month and signed by Trump also targets countries that buy Russian oil and gas. The Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 expanded existing sanctions and aimed to pressure Putin by targeting officials, banks and shadow tankers that facilitate the Russian energy trade.
It also gave Trump the power to impose 100 percent tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil and natural gas.
After Trump\u2019s announcement on Friday, the US Department of the Treasury said the Office of Foreign Assets Control was \u201cimmediately issuing a temporary general license to allow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market\u201d.
Yes, it is, giving analysts reason to doubt that Russia will be able to release as much diesel as Trump is promising.
Neil Atkinson, former head of the International Energy Agency\u2019s oil industry and markets division, told Al Jazeera that he is sceptical about Russia being able to do this.
\u201cIn the very short term, it\u2019s very hard to see how Russia can deliver the volumes that are talked about in the deal other than at the expense of its domestic market,\u201d he said.
Russia was previously the world\u2019s second-largest diesel exporter after the US. But Russian diesel and gas exports in the third quarter of this year were at 190,000 barrels per day compared with 690,000 barrels per day in the second quarter and 850,000 barrels per day in the first quarter, explained Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a maritime intelligence analyst with the shipping analytics company Windward, citing data from the commodities tracker Vortexa.
Russia, therefore, banned diesel exports in July in a bid to meet domestic demand and in late September expanded the ban until the end of October.
Ukraine\u2019s attacks on Russian energy facilities have also contributed to the fuel crisis in Russia. Putin has admitted that 1 percent of Russia\u2019s gross domestic product has been affected by Ukrainian attacks.
Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Defence said its air strikes have destroyed more than half of Russia\u2019s oil refining capacity. In July, it also struck hundreds of Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, affecting the delivery of gas to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
Bockmann told Al Jazeera that Russian domestic shortages were \u201cso acute that over the third quarter for the first time we saw Russia import gasoline and diesel and gas oil\u201d.
She added that \u201cas recently as this week\u201d, a ship carrying diesel and gas oil arrived in the port of Vysotsk.
Last week, Russia said it would consider a partial lifting of diesel export restrictions in the case of overproduction. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told<\/a> the Russian parliament that the domestic market was balanced and \u201cif diesel production exceeds domestic demand, we will consider partially reopening exports.\u201d
Russia typically produces double the diesel needed to meet its domestic needs, according to the International Energy Agency. It has different standards of diesel suitable for different temperatures. Its summer-grade diesel for temperatures over 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit) may be released to make way for the winter and Arctic grades needed domestically in the coming months.<\/p>\n

\u00a0
Trump\u2019s announcement came as US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump\u2019s son-in-law,\u00a0 were meeting with Ukrainian officials and European negotiators in Miami, Florida, to discuss ending the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fifth year.
Zelenskyy reacted to the announcement, saying<\/a> it was \u201ca weak decision by strong partners\u201d.
He said the deal \u201cplays into Russia\u2019s hands,- allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Putin said he was \u201cconvinced [the agreement] will have a positive impact on the entire global economy\u201d.
The Russian president also noted that \u201can agreement was reaffirmed to maintain personal contacts between the presidents of the two countries and to continue cooperation across their respective administrations, security services and agencies.\u201d
Analysts said the agreement will do little to address the global energy crisis, however.
Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG Group, told Al Jazeera that the Trump-Putin deal to release Russian diesel is a short-term solution and \u201canother classic Trump deal\u201d.
\u201cAnnounce an \u2018agreement\u2019 with an unpleasant dictator with impressive headline numbers and no certainty that any of the objectives will be achieved,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if some of the diesel does make it out of Russia, it is only a short-term solution given the globe\u2019s daily consumption of diesel is around 30 million barrels,\u201d which is roughly the total amount that could be released under the outlines of the deal that Trump announced.
Bockmann also told Al Jazeera that it is unclear how much impact releasing Russian diesel will have on reducing prices and global shortages.
\u201cI\u2019m not sure how effective the issuing of the general licence will be in allowing volumes to be imported at levels that are going to impact the domestic price of diesel in the US,\u201d she said.
Atkinson said the volumes announced by Trump \u2013 even if Russia could manage to provide them \u2013 \u201cdon\u2019t really move the needle very much\u201d on prices because the US uses about 3.7 million barrels of diesel a day.
There are also indications that European countries may not even buy diesel from Russia.
\u201cIt\u2019s very hard to see how a European government could, in all morality, buy oil from Russia when the whole point of the last four years is that Europe has been trying to wean itself off Russian oil and gas supplies as soon as practical,\u201d Atkinson said.<\/p>\n

Follow Al Jazeera English:<\/p>\n

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