When Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022, western nations imposed sanctions on Russia in an effort to persuade him to stop the war through economic pressure. Despite sanctions, Russia has managed to continue its oil exports, using a “shadow fleet” of unmarked tankers. In recent months, Ukraine has been hitting Russian oil storage facilities and oil refineries in hopes of suppressing Russia’s oil revenues. Those oil revenues fund Russia’s war.
Day after day, Russia has relentlessly sent missiles to bombard civilian targets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, killing men, women, and children. Without the American Patriot missile systems, Ukraine is almost defenseless.
Trump sent his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his friend Steve Witkoff to talk to Putin about negotiating a peace deal. They left the meeting wreathed in smiles, saying it was a day they would never forget. But they weren’t negotiating a ceasefire or an end to the war. They were negotiating a partnership with Putin to get Russian oil to the U.S. before the midterm elections.
Barely a month ago, Congress passed the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions Act, which gave Trump the power to impose 100% tariffs on any nation buying Russian oil.
Guess who is buying Russian oil? The United States! Trump will have to tariff his own country. The members of Congress who passed the Russian Sanctions Act must feel very foolish indeed.
Trump announced triumphantly that Russia would sell the (no longer sanctioned) Russian oil in order to lower prices of diesel in the U.S.
Senator Thom Tillis (NC) said on national television that Trump may be breaking a law passed in 2022. Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Tillis said the 2022 law banned oil imports from Russia unless all Russian troops were out of Ukraine.
Trump announced the Russian oil shipments as “tons,” not gallons. The U.S. consumes about 4 million gallons of diesel daily. The first release of Russian diesel (300,000 tons) is about 2.2 million gallons, or a half day of diesel consumption in the U.S. Even the larger amounts that Trump has announced would not last long, a matter of days, maybe weeks.
The closure of the waterways that transit oil from the Middle East is the fundamental problem, a problem of Trump’s making.
Having called on Zelensky to stop bombing Russian oil targets, he added that Zelensky should step down as president of Ukraine because he refused to stop bombing Russian oil targets. Zelensky’s response was to bomb another Russian oil facility.
Trump reacted by saying he would stop negotiating a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. When he campaigned in 2024, he claimed he would get a peace deal in one day. It’s almost two years later, and he has no deal. He makes demands only on Ukraine, never Russia.
Trump blamed Zelensky for the high price of oil in the U.S., sidestepping his own responsibility for shutting down the global oil supply when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz after Trump ordered his war on Iran.
Russia comes out ahead. Trump is either a fool or a traitor.
Putin must be laughing. In addition to being free of sanctions on its sale of oil, Russia is supplying Iran with weapons to kill Americans.
It’s a win-win for Putin.
But not for the U.S.
The Guardian reported: “Donald Trump’s deal with Vladimir Putin to import Russian diesel will have little to no meaningful impact on U.S. or global fuel prices.” [1]
Other sources reported the same: BBC, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, et al.
Like everything out of Trump and his loyalist, incompetent, corrupt MAGA regime, it’s more smoke and mirrors (lies) to manipulate and mislead public opinion before the election.
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The Wall Street Journal said today that Trump’s deal with Russia imports a total of 36 million gallons of gas. World consumption daily is 25 million gallons per day.
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It is a PR stunt by a malignant narcissist and convicted rapist fraud and felon cowardly desperate to hold on to power and avoid prison.
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Trump is both a fool and a traitor, the man appears determined to embolden Putin and help to destroy the Ukraine. Utterly horrific.
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I can’t stop imagining just how apoplectic Fox & Righties would be if this were Biden, Obama or any Democrat. It’s absolutely maddening to behold the hypocrisy of the Republicans under the Trump Regime.
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Is the purpose of this worthless deal to deliberately disobey Congress or to help Russia? The former undermines the constitution, the latter undermines peace with Iran.
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Everything Trump does is to spread discord and chaos. That is his preferred method to defeat anyone he deems a threat of any kind.
It is only going to get worse no matter who wins the midterms. Even if Trump is forced to leave the White House on January 20, 2028 (or is impeached and forced out earlier), he will not stop being a meddling, chaos spreading power broker in the background since he now controls most of the Republican Party at the state and federal level.
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We are funding not only the Russian war against Ukraine but Russian military shipments to Iran.
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Clearly, he wants to help his dear pal Vlad.
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Of course, as, imagined, that, he would. He only deals with those whom he believe are, tougher, bullies, just like him, and, he pushes the smaller, “unimportant” countries, shoving them to the walls, cheating them into, believing, that, he’s on their, sides, when all he cared about, is, how he can, SCAM them for, all their, worth, using these “targets” of his like, ATMs, and, once he couldn’t, extraxt more out of these coutries, he would, desert them, the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Israeli-Hamad war had both proven just, that already, and, people still, blindly, foolishly beliebe that, he’s a, savior!!!
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“Russia comes out ahead. Trump is either a fool or a traitor.”
He is both. I’m spades.
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“In” spades.
🙄
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