President Donald Trump's diesel deal with Russia was "a triumph" for Vladimir Putin and an exercise in "abject humiliation" for Trump, according to one former Russian government official, and it is "only the start" of him getting taken advantage of.
Sergey Aleksashenko is a Russian economist who previously served as the country's deputy finance minister from 1993 to 1995, and later became an enemy of the Putin government, fleeing to the U.S. in 2014 and getting placed on a Kremlin wanted list in 2023. Writing for The i Paper on Monday, he detailed how thoroughly Putin prevailed thanks to the diesel fuel export deal Trump agreed to in his desperate bid to bring down prices in the U.S.
"The Russian leader won an American sanctions concession without withdrawing a soldier, suspending attacks on Ukrainian civilians or offering a single meaningful concession toward peace," Aleksashenko explained. "In return, Trump got the promise of enough diesel to barely register in global markets."
He added: "Over the weekend Trump attempted to defend his decisions, claiming he was 'in the process of negotiating peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine' and did not want to drive Russia away. He claimed on Sunday that he was making 'great progress' in a peace deal. But the reality is, this is a remarkably one-sided bargain. I was deputy finance minister of Russia in the 1990s and later first deputy chairman of the Central Bank of Russia. Inside the Kremlin they will be celebrating. The fact of the matter is that the White House has managed to turn Russia’s damaged refineries into a reason to reward the Kremlin."
Despite Trump's "fanfare," the amount of diesel fuel the U.S. is now poised to import from Russia amounts to a "rounding error" compared to the amount the world uses each month, and as such, truckers and farmers hit hard by skyrocketing prices will almost certainly see no relief.
Aleksashenko also argued that the financial value of the deal to Russia is minimal, but added that the Kremlin is acutely aware of the political value it brings them.
"The Kremlin understands the political value of the diesel deal perfectly," he wrote. "It weakens Western unity and establishes a precedent for peeling back sanctions without any reciprocal Russian steps. On Wednesday, Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev was already talking about this agreement as a model for broader US-Russia economic co-operation."
He later concluded: "Putin got what he wanted immediately. Trump got to announce what Americans may never feel. Russia offered diesel – the United States surrendered leverage. Calling that a victory is not merely wishful thinking. It is an embarrassment."
