Washington Examiner economics columnist Tiana Lowe Doescher called President Donald Trump’s diesel deal with Russia a “bad deal” and questioned whether it will move forward.
“[Jared] Kuschner and [Steve] Witcoff want a deal, and Trump has two factions within the White House; he oscillates between the two,” Doescher said Monday on CNN This Morning. “Scott Bessent would have to remove the existing Russian sanctions.”
Trump said Friday that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed on a deal in which Russia supplied the United States with Russian diesel fuel. Rising diesel and gasoline prices have become a major concern for voters ahead of the midterm elections. The deal shows a shift in the president’s relationship with Russia, and it comes just weeks after he signed a bill imposing sanctions. The bill, named in honor of the late Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, also allowed Trump to impose tariffs on countries that buy Russia’s oil and gas.
As the Russia-Ukraine war continues and the U.S. faces its own war against Iran, Doescher said the deal will likely “be blown up.”
“It’s unlikely to make a real dent,” Doescher said. “I just want to point out that Ukraine offered mutual ceasefire on energy infrastructure — that was rejected, obviously, because Putin is the primary aggressor in this campaign.”
Doescher said that the U.S. shouldn’t want to help Russia and that it risks increasing tensions with allies.
“One, it threatens our arms deals with the Europeans; European Commission has already said that they will not stand for this,” Doescher said. “Two, we could just go to the Canadians and increase our diesel imports from our current.”
However, U.S. tensions remain high with Canada amid an ongoing tariff war between the allied countries. Several Senators have already called for the president to “reverse course” on the deal. Doescher said Trump often says lots of things that don’t come to fruition, and she believes that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will announce the deal would not move forward.
“It’s a bad deal that [Trump] announced, and I expect the treasury secretary to explain that, again, the sanctions regime … is working,” Doescher said.
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Doescher said Russia was also helping Iran in its war against the U.S., both with training and providing intelligence. Despite this, Persian Gulf oil exports were back up to pre-war levels, Doescher said.
“With Bessent’s operation, the financial operation, on Iran and also its benefactors, it’s working,” Doescher said. “The Iranian economy is in free fall.”