Trump strikes deal with Putin to buy Russian diesel

Alex Ritson (0:00)

This is The Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Alex Ritson, and in the early hours of Saturday, October the 10th, these are our main stories. President Trump does a deal with Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel into the United States, just weeks after the US threatened to sanction anyone who bought energy from Moscow. Washington places restrictions on the International Criminal Court shortly after a former ICC judge receives the Nobel Peace Prize. And investigators say the co-pilot who wanted to take over the Flydubai plane heading for Israel intended to carry out a 9-11 style terror attack.

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There's been another extraordinary move by President Trump. Just a few weeks ago, he signed into law legislation that would allow him to put further sanctions on Russia because of its war in Ukraine. It gives Mr Trump the authority to sanction anyone who buys Russian energy. But now, in what seems like a contradiction, the US president has himself done a deal with Moscow to buy Russian diesel. It comes after a phone call with Russia's President Putin. The cost of diesel, which is used by farmers and truck drivers in the United States and elsewhere, has doubled in price since the start of the US war with Iran. Mr Trump seems desperate to get the price down ahead of midterm elections in the US next month.

Before we look at President Trump's motivations, does Russia even have the diesel to export? The UK-based energy analyst Alexander Koleander says, perhaps not.

Alexander Koleander (2:03)

Russian military and Russian agriculture are both run on diesel. And if Russia is planning a ground attack on the remaining part of Donbass, which is still controlled by Ukraine, it would need more diesel.

And now Donald Trump also needs a diesel. So without Zelensky stopping attacks on the Russian refineries, I do not know how Russia would be able to supply the American market or the global market with its diesel.

Alex Ritson (2:33)

So why is Mr Trump turning to Russia? I asked our North American correspondent Anthony Zirka.

Anthony Zurcher (2:40)

I think it's a reflection of the difficulty that Trump finds himself in politically here in the United States. He has been looking for ways to reduce the price of energy here in the United States, particularly the price of diesel for going on a month now. He pressured European allies to tap their resources. He suspended attacks on diesel and tried to bring more farm diesel into the market for US trucking to get products to market. He has promised that he was not going to start any new hostilities with Iran prior to the midterm elections, but none of that has had a very real impact on diesel prices and the knock on effects of that in higher inflation and higher prices for American consumers. So, this has to be seen as the latest and certainly most dramatic move that Donald Trump has made to try to help himself critically, help the country economically just about a month before these midterm elections. But this would be a new development as a development comes just three weeks after he signed a law passed by large bipartisan majorities in Congress that authorize new sanctions on Russia as punishment for the ongoing Ukraine war and giving Trump authority to put tariffs on the major importers of Russian oil around the world. Now, if the United States becomes one of them, or even if it's helping smooth the way for new Russian oil exports, I think that has to be seen as a pretty remarkable about face.

Alex Ritson (4:09)

Yeah, I mean, the next logical step presumably would be the US lifting these sanctions.

Anthony Zurcher (4:14)

They're already taking the steps at least to temporarily remove these sanctions on Russian diesel that is going into the market. The fact that he can do that with a wave of a pen now means he can do that at some other point as well. American presidents have remarkable flexibility as far as that goes. So this could be opening the door for the United States to use sanctions relief as another tool in their work with Russia and another tool in their attempts to try to end the Russia-Ukraine war. But now this puts the United States more firmly on the side of benefiting from Russia's energy exports, energy exports that have been targeted by Ukraine in the war. And Donald Trump is in the past called for Ukraine to dial back its attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. But now there is an even more clear and direct benefit for the United States to pressure Ukraine to do that and to try to help Russia get its oil out onto the market.