Trump Signed a Sweeping Russia Sanctions Law Last Month. This Month, He’s Importing Russian Diesel to Lower Gas Prices.

A phone call that was supposed to be about a plague outbreak in Russia ended, instead, with Vladimir Putin agreeing to ship the United States millions of tons of diesel — and with a sanctions law Donald Trump signed barely a month earlier quietly becoming optional.

A Call About Plague, a Deal About Fuel

On Friday, Trump announced on social media that he had struck a deal with Putin during a call he said was expected to focus on a suspected case of plague in Russia. Instead, Russia agreed to “immediately” supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, another 500,000 tons in November, 1 million tons “immediately thereafter,” and 3 million more tons “within a short period of time.” Hours later, the U.S. Treasury Department issued a license easing sanctions on Russian diesel loaded onto tankers by that Friday — a shield that holds until April 2027.

It’s the latest in a string of licenses Treasury has issued for Russian fuel since the Iran war began earlier this year — but the first one to ease diesel sanctions for longer than the standard 30-day window since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Law He Signed Himself

A month earlier, Trump had signed a sweeping, bipartisan sanctions law targeting Russia’s energy revenue: sanctions on Russian banks, officials and a shadow fleet of tankers, a ban on new U.S. investment, and tariffs of up to 100% on the top importers of Russian oil and gas. The law also directed the administration to actually impose those sanctions. The diesel deal doesn’t technically breach it — the U.S. hasn’t imported Russian oil or gas since the Biden administration banned it in 2022 — but it unwinds the law’s entire premise, easing the exact pressure Congress wrote the law to apply. Trump’s own explanation skipped the war in Ukraine entirely: “Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority.”

Everyone Found a Different Reason to Be Unhappy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called it “a weak decision, unfortunately, a weak decision by strong partners,” and said his own negotiating team — meeting Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner the same day — was “simply being used as a smokescreen.” In a longer post, he warned the deal “plays into Russia’s hands — allowing it to kill more, wage war for longer, have even less respect for America, and inflict even greater losses and damage on the world.” Senior House Democrat Don Beyer called the move “infuriating.”

The relief Trump is offering American drivers is real: diesel averaged $6.23 a gallon nationally, down from a record $6.52 in September. It’s also been made possible, awkwardly, by the sanctioned country itself easing its own export ban — Russia had halted diesel exports since July to cover a shortfall caused by Ukrainian strikes on its refineries, which the International Energy Agency says have cut output by roughly 30%. Within hours of Trump’s announcement, Russian Deputy PM Alexander Novak told Russian state media that Moscow was “immediately starting to lift restrictions on diesel exports ahead of schedule.”

Video: Trump’s Russian Diesel Deal

BBC News reports on the agreement and the sanctions pressure it releases.

Somewhere between the plague call and the Treasury license, a month-old sanctions law became negotiable. Washington says it’s still tough on Russia. It just also happens to be open for diesel.