President Trump's unexpected move to permit Russian diesel exports to the United States has ignited a firestorm among Senate Republicans just weeks before the midterm elections. The deal, struck directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has already drawn public rebukes from four GOP senators—Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Curtis of Utah, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina—with many more reportedly seething in private.
"I think there are a lot more people that are privately critical of it. The question is whether they want to go public with it," said Vin Weber, a GOP strategist and former House Republican leader. The backlash comes on the heels of a tough Russia sanctions package that the Senate passed just two months ago, which Trump had delayed for months despite mounting pressure from his own party.
"The bigger political risk for the president on this—if it's a political risk—is there is a substantial base of support in his party for taking a very tough attitude on Russia which he does not seem to share," Weber added. The deal, which would see the U.S. purchase an estimated 2.5 million tons of fuel from Russia, is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Russian economy, potentially bolstering its war effort in Ukraine.
Senators who voted for the sanctions package are particularly incensed because they had worked for months to prevent China and India from buying Russian energy. Collins, who is in a tough reelection fight in a state Trump has lost in three presidential runs, took to social media to condemn the president's decision. "I oppose President Trump's decision to lift sanctions on the purchase of diesel from Russia. I was a cosponsor of the Russian sanctions law, which the President recently signed but is now not following," she wrote.
Collins joined Murkowski, Tillis, Curtis, and three Democrats—Ron Wyden of Oregon, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire—in a joint statement blasting Trump for flouting a 2022 statute that bans Russian energy imports. "Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin's brutal war against Ukraine," the senators declared, noting the administration had failed to consult Congress or justify the sanctions lift as required by law.
Trump's decision is widely seen as a desperate attempt to lower diesel prices, which have become a major political liability for Republicans in battleground races. One senior Senate Republican aide expressed hope the deal could provide crucial help to GOP candidates in the final sprint to Election Day, even as they acknowledged the optics were troubling. "Trump realizes that diesel prices are very high, and I think he's trying to do anything he can do get it down. He did a deal with the devil from the looks of it," the source said.
Danielle Pletka, a distinguished senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, called the deal "a lifeline for Putin" at a moment when the Russian offensive has stalled in Ukraine. She suggested Trump is "desperate" to bring down diesel prices as polls show Democrats favored to win the House and possibly the Senate. "It's just an act of desperation by a president who doesn't see the optics," she said, calling the lifting of sanctions "a lifeline for Putin at a moment he's losing ground. Looks like a pact between two desperate men."
GOP Divisions Emerge
Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, one of Trump's staunchest allies, sidestepped questions about whether he supports the deal. "The president is balancing and has to make tough decisions. He's balancing his effort to stop and end … Putin's war in Ukraine and lowering prices for American families," he said on CBS News's "Face the Nation." Barrasso quickly pivoted to blaming Democrats for constraining domestic oil production and argued the sanctions bill gave Trump "flexibility and the firepower to use another tool against Vladimir Putin."
Meanwhile, diesel prices have already fallen to $6.27 a gallon from a September high of $6.53, but the political fallout may not be so easily contained. As more Republicans weigh going public with their criticism, the deal threatens to overshadow the party's closing arguments on the economy and border security. With the midterms just weeks away, Trump's gamble on Russian diesel could prove to be a costly one for his party.
