Trump's Russian diesel deal runs aground as tankers turn back from US coast: report

A month after President Donald Trump announced a controversial deal with Vladimir Putin to bring Russian diesel to the U.S., not a single barrel has arrived, the Wall Street Journal reported, as tankers headed for American ports turned around due to a lack of willing buyers.

Trump pitched the Russian fuel as a way to bring down soaring diesel prices, which pushed up consumer costs ahead of the midterm elections. But "U.S. oil companies are reluctant to handle the cargoes of Russian diesel because of the potential legal and reputational consequences," industry executives and lobbyists told the Journal.

Lawmakers from both parties have called Trump’s exemption of diesel from Russia sanctions illegal, the paper reported. Companies also worry about violating international sanctions, since the U.K., the European Union and Switzerland still ban Russian fuel imports.

“There are political, compliance and enforcement challenges,” Michelle Wiese Bockmann, a senior analyst at the maritime intelligence firm Windward, told the Journal.

Trump announced the deal on Oct. 9 in a Truth Social post, saying Moscow had agreed to “immediately” supply diesel to the U.S. and global markets after a “highly successful discussion” with Putin.

According to the report, Russia has since resumed some diesel exports it halted this summer after Ukrainian drones hit its refineries. According to the Journal, it is now selling to buyers in the Middle East, North Africa and South America, but not the U.S.

The latest sign of trouble came Monday, the paper reported. The Agioi Fanendes, a tanker carrying 300,000 barrels of Russian diesel and originally bound for New York, slowed off the East Coast and "started loitering in a zigzag pattern," the Journal reported The ship-tracking service Kpler now lists South America as its likely destination, and the ship’s manager told the Journal its “discharging port is not confirmed yet.”

Three other tankers turned back last week, according to Kpler data cited by the Journal. Two are headed to Brazil, and a third has arrived in Egypt. All three had listed U.S. East Coast destinations when they left Russia’s Primorsk port last month.

The U.S. doesn’t need the fuel, the Journal noted. Domestic refiners produce more diesel than the country uses and export more than 1.5 million barrels a day. Still, tight global supplies tied to the Middle East conflict have pushed the average price of diesel to $6.16 a gallon, up from $3.75 before the war.

After Democrats’ sweeping midterm wins, oil lobbyists told the Journal that companies now fear any involvement could make them targets of investigations by the new Congress.