Vitaliy Portnikov / Vilni Media
Following agreements between the American and Russian presidents to lift sanctions on the supply of Russian diesel, a crisis has begun between the United States and Ukraine, which in its scale cannot even be compared to the crisis caused by the polemics of Trump and Zelensky in the Oval Office.
Now the American president is decisively demanding that Ukraine stop striking at the oil refineries of the Russian Federation and even replace the president who disagrees with this. Information has already appeared that White House officials are blackmailing Kyiv by threatening to withdraw from the program of supplying American weapons funded by European money and sharing intelligence.
At the same time, what is happening cannot be explained by any formal political logic, except electoral. Only a few weeks ago, the American president solemnly signed the “Graham Act,” which allows him to impose sanctions on countries that purchase Russian energy resources. The main goal of this law is to stop the export of Russian energy resources to the world market and thus force Russia to agree to end the war. Meanwhile, Trump is demanding that Kyiv stop limiting this export with its own strikes on refineries and praises Putin for supplying oil to the world market, even though these are illegal supplies. Madness? Is that all?
The amount of diesel fuel that Putin promised to supply to the world market is negligible compared to the volumes that the United States itself exports monthly. Russian diesel cannot reach the United States itself because it is prohibited by law. Putin can sell diesel fuel to other countries without the permission of the American Treasury Department – before the Ukrainian strikes, Russia exported diesel fuel in volumes up to 3 million tons monthly, and now it is about 300 thousand tons with a gradual slight increase. Explaining why Trump and Putin needed this deal is impossible from a logical point of view. Assumptions remain.
The most important thing is that Trump is trying to prevent Republican problems in the midterm elections and hopes to lower the price of diesel fuel through loud announcements of agreements with Putin. But voters will react not to words but to the display at gas stations. And the prices on this display are unlikely to decrease from Trump’s words – at least not immediately.
Someone explains the behavior of the American president by the desire of certain people in his entourage to buy foreign assets of the Russian company “Lukoil,” which may decrease in value in a situation where Ukraine strikes Russian refineries. And in this version, Trump and Putin are negotiating diesel precisely to give the American president a reason to demand a halt to strikes on factories – a reason not related to Lukoil. But when did Trump need a reason to change his position? He began talking about the need to stop strikes on Russian refineries long before the agreements with the Russian president.
And, frankly, we do not know what motives Trump was actually guided by. But we can find out. After the midterm elections, if the majority in Congress moves to the Democrats. Then, during the work of various commissions, whose members will try to find answers to this and many other uncomfortable questions for the American president, we will have a chance to understand the real motives of Donald Trump.
And it is precisely this that the American president is trying to prevent.
