US President Donald Trump is facing a growing backlash over plans to import diesel from Russia as the Iran war continues to impact global energy prices.<\/p>\n
Trump on Friday announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to release 300,000 tonnes of diesel immediately “to the American and global marketplace” followed by several other shipments. <\/p>\n
That is despite signing legislation to authorise fresh US sanctions and tariffs on nations that import Russian oil and gas just weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The move has been criticised by some Republican and Democratic lawmakers, who believe the deal violates US laws.<\/p>\n
As well as the initial release of 300,000 tonnes of diesel, Trump said Russia would then supply 500,000 tonnes in November and one million more after that.<\/p>\n
This would be followed by a further three million tonnes, which would be delivered “within a short period” dependent on the condition of its refineries, which have been attacked by Ukraine during the ongoing war between the two countries.<\/p>\n
“Lower prices for Americans, especially our Great Farmers, Ranchers, and Truckers, is my Greatest Priority,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.<\/p>\n
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak confirmed these numbers to Tass, the country’s state-owned news agency, saying the export volume could reach three million tonnes per month in future.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the deal a gift to Putin that amounts to “an investment in a war that must be ended”. <\/p>\n
It is understood the US Treasury is suspending sanctions on Russian diesel exports until 7 April as part of the deal, but other assets like those in American banks are still frozen.<\/p>\n
A group of seven senators – four Republicans and three Democrats \u2013 on Sunday said the deal violated US laws, urging Trump to “reverse course”.<\/p>\n
“The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians,” the lawmakers said.<\/p>\n
They added that Congress had “explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine”. <\/p>\n
The statement was signed by Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis and John Curtis, as well as Democrats Jeanne Shaheen, Richard Blumenthal and Ron Wyden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump is facing a growing backlash over plans to import diesel from Russia as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-799721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}