SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
Donald Trump came to office boasting he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in a single day. In fact, he’d been saying that well before he returned to the White House after his first term.
Way back in March 2023, he promised that, if re-elected, he would settle the war before he was even inaugurated.
“It will take me no longer than one day. I know exactly what to say to each of them.” By “them” he meant Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.
Such was Trump’s confidence in his willingness to do what others wouldn’t, his ability to deploy American power, and his own personal exceptionalism, that perhaps he genuinely believed he would succeed.
But after nearly two years back in power he has not only failed to end the war, he has now, in principle at least, committed to funding it.
Trump’s announcement on Friday (US time) of a deal to immediately buy 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel fuel – with millions more to come – was described by Zelensky as “weak”, unfair and dishonest. “It looks like a happy birthday present for Putin. It looks absolutely terrible,” he told American news site Axios.
Others called it much worse. Michael McFaul, a former US ambassador to Russia, said more Ukrainians would die as a result of Trump’s decision to line the pockets of a brutal imperialist dictator in order to deal with skyrocketing fuel costs due to his war in Iran.
“Trump’s bet is that Americans care more about their gas prices than they do about people in Ukraine or America’s reputation in the world,” McFaul said. “That Americans are just as transactional and immoral as Trump is. Let’s see.”
Plenty of Republicans called out Trump’s diesel deal, including some who do not frequently criticise him publicly.
Michael McCaul, chairman emeritus of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, noted Trump had only recently signed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. That law gives the president the power to impose steep 100 per cent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas, among other things.
Graham, who died unexpectedly in July, would be spinning in his grave – though it must be said he frequently bent over backwards to justify Trump’s decisions once they were made.
But like all the president’s deals, this one warrants scrutiny. It will likely not be such a boon for the Kremlin’s coffers after all.
Russia is barely exporting any diesel. Yes, it technically has an “export ban” in place, but that is essentially a fig leaf – it doesn’t have enough to fuel its own economy. And it has kept exporting to select nations, mostly former Soviet republics, where it can.
Yuliia Pavytska, head of the sanctions program at the Kyiv School of Economics Institute, analysed the state of play in a post on X.
She pointed out that Russia exported just 0.1 million barrels of diesel in September – a fraction of the roughly 2.2 million barrels called for the first stage of Trump’s deal with Putin.
Unless Ukraine stops striking Russian refineries – as Trump demands – their capacity is only likely to further diminish. It is difficult to see how Moscow could export even the modest volume Trump wants to buy.
“We have a promise that Russia still needs to find a way to fulfil,” Pavytska said. “And even if delivered, it looks considerably less impressive than the presidential CAPS LOCK. Not quite THE GREATEST DEAL IN HISTORY.”
Whatever the ultimate metrics, the deal is still handing Putin a lifeline – and another seat at the table. Trump has also invited Putin to December’s meeting of G20 leaders in Miami.
And it places substantial pressure on Zelensky, who now has to decide whether to keep striking Russian refineries and therefore directly sabotage an economic deal between the US and Russia.
It is ironic, galling, striking – take your pick – that Trump’s deal to purchase diesel from Putin came on the same day he threw an unsightly and narcissistic tantrum over being snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a 600-word rant on Truth Social, the president of the United States said it was “an indelible stain on Norway” that the Oslo-based committee had overlooked him – one that “will never be forgiven”.
Trump may have some claims to the prize – the strongest among them probably being his work to bring the Israeli hostages home and get Israel to the negotiating table on Gaza and Lebanon – but it’s pretty hard to demand it when you are bombing Iran and doing sweetheart deals with “Vladimir”, as Trump calls him.
When Trump came back on the scene he was given the benefit of the doubt on the Russia-Ukraine war. Maybe he wouldn’t end it on day one, but no one else had achieved anything, so it was worth giving him a chance. The time would come, people said, when Trump would use his leverage to put pressure on Putin.
How stupid that looks now.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.
