Getty ImagesWith elections that will decide control of Congress just weeks away and American voters already casting ballots in some battlegrounds, President Donald Trump has turned his eyes overseas – and to Russia, in particular – for help tackling one of his most pressing problems.
World affairs seldom provide easy answers, however, and developments elsewhere have threatened to undermine his efforts to bring down fuel prices before they provide any political benefit.
A whirlwind weekend started on Friday afternoon, as Trump announced a new deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin that would provide the US with hundreds of millions of tons of Russian diesel fuel in the coming months.
High energy prices, particularly for midwestern agricultural states that rely on diesel to power farm machinery and carry their goods to market, have been a growing source of frustration for American voters.
Trump heralded his Russian deal in a Truth Social post as bringing “lower prices for Americans,” while he ordered his Treasury Department to suspend US restrictions that prevented Russian diesel from being sold on global markets.
Two days later, Trump was back on his social media website, touting a new energy ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine.
The truth, however, was more complicated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he had no advanced notice of the agreement, although he said his nation would abide by it. Russia, for its part, was silent. And on Sunday night, it launched a new wave of attacks on Ukrainian power plants.
“It’s clear that Putin does not read Truth Social,” Zelensky noted wryly on Monday. He added: “This winter, if Russia does not agree to an energy ceasefire, we will respond.”
Trump and Zelensky have had a tumultuous relationship throughout his second term. The American president alternates between blaming Russia and Ukraine for the continuing conflict he previously said would be easy to end once he returned to the White House.
In recent days, Zelensky has been the primary target of Trump’s ire, as Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil infrastructure have contributed to worldwide energy shortages.
On Saturday, Trump told reporters at the White House that it was time for Ukraine to get a new president. And both the Financial Times and CNN have reported that the US has threatened to cut off arms sales and intelligence sharing with Ukraine if Zelensky does not halt attacks on Russian refineries. Zelensky “better damn well stop,” Trump said.
“I think that the president has a decade long public record of lashing out of people who aren’t doing what he wants, when and how he wants to do it,” Terry Haines, founder of independent think-tank Pangaea Policy, told the BBC.
ReutersIt now appears Trump’s celebration of the “energy truce” may have been a familiar move for this president, touting an agreement before it had been sealed and delivered. In the past, for instance, he has prematurely announced Middle East ceasefires and sweeping peace agreements.
Whether it is impatience on the president’s part with the slow pace of diplomacy or a savvy negotiating tactic to push a deal across the finish line, the result has been to set off a scramble as the world decides what it means – and how to react.
Those reactions didn’t take long to arrive.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has become a vocal critic of the president’s on the international stage, offered “strong support” for the energy ceasefire, but condemned the diesel deal as undermining peace and stability in Europe and helping Russia to finance its “illegal, unjustifiable war against Ukraine”.
In the US, Trump’s diesel announcement prompted similar concern, even among members of his own party. Four Republican senators joined with Democrats in a letter calling on the president to “immediately reverse course”.
“Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine,” the senators wrote in a statement released on Sunday. “President Trump’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the US runs directly counter to that law.”
Six Ukrainian energy sites hit by Russia since Trump announced ceasefire, Zelensky says
Trump faces growing backlash over plans to import diesel from Russia
What could be worse for the president than the criticisms is that the announced ceasefire has had little effect on the price of diesel, which continues to sit below its record highs but still well above $6 a gallon.
Meanwhile, as the latest twists in the Russia-Ukraine conflict unfolded, new violence in the Middle East threaten to further strain global energy markets, regardless of what happens with Russian oil.
A wave of Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia, including strikes on airports and energy infrastructure that killed at least 13 over the weekend, have threatened to escalate a decade-long conflict that had been simmering throughout the US-Iran war.
“This is the Houthis sending a message that it’s not just military targets, it’s not just energy infrastructure, they’re going to strike at civilian airports that could kill a lot of people,” Michael Ratney, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, told the BBC.
The US-Iran war was a conflict that none of the Arab nations in the region wanted, he said, and the latest Houthi offensive was a foreseeable result. With the US and Iran currently in an extended stand-off, any new hostilities could lead to more regional conflict and send oil prices soaring once more.
“I do think it gets uglier before it really deescalates,” he said.
In recent weeks, Trump has pointed to Ukraine, not the Middle East, as the primary source of the world’s energy woes. He cites increased oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which had been effectively shut by Iran’s military threat.
That may, however, be wishful thinking – an attempt to convince the American public to direct their energy-related anger toward a conflict that began under a different president’s watch.
There is only one president at a time, however. And when American voters casts their ballots they tend to hold those who are currently in power responsible.
After a rough weekend that again proved there are no easy fixes to the global energy crisis, that may be the worst news of all for the US president.
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