LAST week, America’s Dollar Store Dictator Donald Trump triumphantly announced that he had unilaterally suspended some United States sanctions on Russia to allow the latter to export diesel fuel. The implication was that the fuel would be sold to the US, although the way in which the executive order was written suggested that Russia could export diesel to countries in Europe as well, within the “allowed” quantities. The move was immediately recognized for what it was: a desperate attempt to implement some economic relief in the US ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, in which Trump’s MAGA Republicans are expected to get trounced.
Diesel prices in the US have skyrocketed since Mango Mussolini was goaded by Israel’s Zionist regime into launching a war against Iran on Feb. 28. According to data from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA), retail diesel prices averaged $3.76 per gallon just before the outbreak of the war, and have risen by about 65 percent to an average of about $6.38 per gallon now. To put those into locally familiar measures, that would be an increase from P62.58 per liter to P106.18 per liter. This has obviously been a nightmare for the US economy, driving up the costs of everything; headline inflation in the US jumped to 3.7 percent in September from 3.4 percent the month before. For those of us in the Philippines who may have, by now, grown ruefully accustomed to inflation in the 6–7 percent range, that may not sound bad, but for the US it’s terrible.
Since he obviously does not want to draw attention to the fact that it was his fault fuel prices have gone through the roof, the Angry Orange decided to blame Ukraine, which has been expertly wrecking Russia’s petroleum processing and fuel distribution infrastructure over the past couple of months. Trump, being a loyal supporter of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and having a personal ax to grind with Ukraine for President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s refusal to help dig up dirt on former US president Joe Biden and his family, has always chafed at the overwhelming bipartisan support for Ukraine in the US. It is, perhaps, the only issue about which his otherwise obedient Republican enablers disagree with him.
The diesel issue, from his warped perspective, presented an opportunity to both prop up the Republicans’ dying chances in the midterms and give him an excuse to withdraw support from Ukraine to prop up Kuya Vlad’s dying imperialist adventure. Some steps in that direction have already been taken. The US, in the past couple of days, has stopped sharing early-warning missile tracking data with Ukraine, resulting in a sharp uptick in civilian casualties from indiscriminate Russian bombing, and on-again, off-again Trump servant Elon Musk, the second-most horrible person currently alive, has cut off Ukraine from the Starlink satellite internet network.
The premise is entirely a lie; the conflict between Ukraine and Russia has absolutely nothing to do with the diesel price and supply crunch that the US now finds itself in. Consequently, making a deal with Russia — which, it should be pointed out, has not yet actually been confirmed in any way by the Russian government — isn’t going to solve it, for the US or anyone else. In fact, all the “deal” does is reveal that the Trump administration didn’t just shoot itself in the foot with the war against Iran; it shot itself in both feet.
Wholly irrelevant
Prior to Feb. 28, the US produced virtually all of its domestic diesel fuel requirements. About 70 to 75 percent of the crude oil supply for this also came from domestic sources, with some being imported from Canada, a small amount from Mexico, and less than 8 percent from the Persian Gulf. No oil or finished fuel products were being imported from Russia because the US, as the world’s largest petroleum producer, simply didn’t need them; the war in Ukraine or other political considerations were wholly irrelevant.
The US attack on Iran, thus, did not hurt the US too much in terms of supply, but it deranged the oil, gas, fuel and petrochemical supply chains of much of the rest of the world, particularly Europe, which has clamped down on supply from Russia — its usual source of imports—due to Russia’s illegal war of conquest in Ukraine. So, in order to prevent a backlash that might have real diplomatic or economic consequences from the ostensible allies of the US, the US government began exporting large amounts of its diesel production. All the while, the explanation was that this was just a short-term measure, and the imminent capitulation of Iran and a swift end to the war would soon restore normalcy.
Politics aside, turning to Russia for relief from supply-driven high diesel prices is futile. Under the deal announced by Sir Naps-a-lot, Russia is to supply the US with an initial shipment of 300,000 metric tons (about 2.25 million barrels) of diesel this month, 500,000 metric tons in November, and 1 million metric tons monthly after that. To put that into some kind of scale, the average daily diesel consumption in the US is about 2.94 million barrels, according to the US EIA.
The amount that Russia could actually supply to the US might actually be closer to zero, thanks to Ukraine. Ukraine’s attacks on Russian oil infrastructure as of September 2026, based on data gathered by the International Energy Agency (IEA), have disrupted 51 percent of its total refinery capacity. Russia’s diesel production capacity has been reduced by about 30 percent, perhaps more, and the most important point about that is the damage is long-term; in the 27 of 32 major Russian refinery complexes hit by Ukraine, the mid-processing sections have been targeted — the parts of the machinery that will take a minimum of six to eight months to repair and, in some cases, may be permanently destroyed.
The Russian government might be willing to impose further privations on its domestic fuel market, already suffering from severe shortages, in order to scrape together 300,000 or 500,000 metric tons of diesel to export for the sake of collecting some badly needed foreign currency income, but it will not be able to keep that up. And it certainly will not be able to export an amount even approaching 1 million metric tons, probably not even once, and certainly not every month.
The relevance of all this to the Philippines is that it should be a glaring object lesson in why this country should not do business with the current US regime. Trump himself is not smart enough or mentally composed enough to come up with this stupid “Russian deal” on his own; it is the equally or even more incompetent machinery that works for him that did it. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. should keep this in mind when Trump visits next month for the Asean Summit (although that is uncertain) and, for once, try not to act like a toadying vassal in the presence of the Pompous Pumpkin.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Bluesky: @benkritz.bsky.social
Website: www.badmannersgunclub.com
