In a move creating cheers in all the wrong places, President Donald Trump on Friday announced a deal to resupply global markets with Russian diesel fuel, a move he hopes will ease fuel prices before Election Day. Trump is thinking about Iran, but U.S. law specifically prevents Russian fuel exports over its invasion of Iran. As it turns out, Uncle Sam’s economic arm may be only long enough to strangle one oil-producing giant at a time without causing undue strain.

In a characteristic Truth Social post, President Trump celebrated “a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace.” Trump added that Russia would export “another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter,” on an unspecified time frame. Russia would then export another three million tons of diesel fuel “based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries.”

Trump left no room for doubt about his motivations. “Between our TOTAL CONTROL of the Strait of Hormuz, and this great announcement on Russian Energy, Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” he added. “Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority. This is a very big and important announcement” — especially in the weeks before the election.

Economic number-crunchers soon questioned whether the exports Trump touted would have the effect he envisioned. Forbes writer Erik Sherman calculated that an immediate shipment of 300,000 metric tons (Trump did not specify whether he meant short or metric tons, so Sherman used the larger measurement “to offer the benefit of the doubt”) would equate to 2.22 million barrels of diesel, or about 56% of the 3.92 million barrels of diesel fuel burned in the U.S. every day.

The amounts Trump mentioned total 4.8 million metric tons, which Sherman calculated at 35.5 million barrels, “or less than 10 days of U.S. use, spread across an unknown number of months.” That only compares the numbers to American consumption, not the global commodity market. Given these calculations, Sherman was highly skeptical that Russian fuel shipments would have any significant impact on global diesel prices.

Analysts also questioned whether Russia could deliver such amounts, noting that Russia has been importing diesel fuel from South Korea. “Given the damaged state of its production facilities and its fuel-intensive warmongering, it is unlikely that Russia will any time soon be poised to ship 4.8 million tons of diesel,” argued National Review’s Andrew McCarthy.

As a result of its internal fuel shortages, Russia has instituted a ban on diesel exports, recently extended through October 31.

Russia is not the only government that has implemented a ban on Russia’s export of diesel fuel. “Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine. Congress was clear: the U.S. should not import oil from Russia until it ends its aggression against Ukraine and ceases threats against our NATO Allies,” a bipartisan group of seven U.S. senators (four Republicans, three Democrats) said Sunday.

“President Trump’s decision to allow Russian diesel imports to the U.S. runs directly counter to that law. The Administration has also failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation to justify its decision as required by statute,” they added. “The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians. The Administration must immediately reverse course.”

“The U.S. would be fueling the Russian war machine. Most of this diesel would go to the global supply since the U.S. already produces more than it consumes,” declared Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “I agree with these bipartisan senators and urge the president to ‘reverse course.’”

President Trump’s statement did not state specifically that Russia’s exports would come to the U.S., only that they would go “to the American and Global Marketplace.” If American imports of Russian diesel are banned, then what about imports by other countries?

Congress settled that question with the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill passed earlier this year after the late senator’s death, which authorized tariffs up to 100% against major importers of Russian fuel. The aim of that legislation was to cripple Russia’s war economy and force them to negotiate a resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. “President Trump’s deal to allow Russian diesel imports violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill recently signed into law,” Perkins argued.

This is why security consultant Mark Galeotti described the diesel deal as “an astonishing birthday present,” who turned 74 last week, because “it drives another and increasingly thick wedge between Trump and Zelensky.”

Indeed, that wedge is already growing. Alongside the diesel deal, Trump declared that both Russia and Ukraine had agreed to an “energy ceasefire,” whereby they would not attack one another’s energy production facilities, so that Russia could produce diesel to export. That night, “a Russian jet-powered ‘shahed’ [drone] struck a gas-production facility in Ukraine. There was also a Russian strike on an ordinary gas station, involving several drones,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced. “Last night, Russian oil refineries were not burning.”

“We are ready to respect an energy ceasefire if Russia is ready to do the same,” Zelensky added. “We agree if they agree. And we have already shown that we mean it.” But “for now, this is Putin’s answer to Trump — Russian attacks.”

The next day, after Ukraine abided by the agreement that Russia violated, President Trump had words of criticism only for Zelensky, suggesting that Ukrainians “get a new leader who can make a deal,” because “for some reason [Zelensky] never does.”

President Trump’s apparent inability to grasp the moral dimensions of the conflict may be responsible for the widespread criticism his Russian deal has received. “President Trump’s atrocious oil deal with Vladimir Putin, his friend and America’s foe, is … a gift to Putin, requiring no concessions on his part,” McCarthy asserted. “It’s a fraud on the American people — a desperate, futile attempt to address Trump’s self-inflicted wound of high diesel prices.”