Trump’s deal with Putin will have little impact on US diesel prices, experts say

Analysts say fuel will take weeks to ship and quantity is too small to affect prices, while full deal is unlikely to be met given damage to Russian refineries

Trump announces partial ceasefire but Zelenskyy says deal is ‘news to me’

Donald Trump’s deal with Vladimir Putin to temporarily lift sanctions on US imports of Russian diesel will have little “meaningful” effect on motorists and businesses in the US and overseas, energy and foreign policy analysts have predicted.

The package announced by Trump involves 300,000 tonnes of diesel released immediately “to the American and global marketplace” followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and a further 1m tonnes after that. The 300,000 figure equates to about three-quarters of what the US would use in a day, according to calculations using figures from the US Energy Information Administration.

However, experts suggested that the quantities involved – and the time it will take for the supplies to arrive in the US – is “too little, too late” to affect current high diesel prices, which observers have linked to challenging Republican party polling numbers before next month’s midterm elections.

US prices have surged by almost 70% since the start of the Iran war, to about $6.30 a gallon, according to American Automobile Association. In the UK, the average price of diesel climbed to a record £2 a litre earlier in October, and sat just below that mark on Friday.

“They are going to have to charter vessels, load them and transport the cargo to the US. That will take about three weeks – so we are pretty much at the end of the month and about a week before the midterms.”

However, Kelty said the diesel shipments would also cause complications in a global supply chain, including multinational companies having to work out which of its supplies originated from Russia and therefore might breach sanctions in other jurisdictions, including Europe.

Zelenskyy described Trump’s deal as a “weak decision”, saying it would encourage Russia to keep attacking Ukraine, but Trump then blamed Kyiv’s strikes on Russian energy infrastructure for rising fuel prices. Trump said Ukraine neeeded “a new leader”.

Trump later posted on Truth Social: “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

“The whole point of the deal for Putin is that it fails, which he can blame on Ukraine and thus stoke tensions between Trump and Zelenskyy. Indeed, it’s already working.”

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