US senators ask Trump to rescind 'disastrous' Russian diesel deal
A bipartisan group of 12 US senators, including former Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell, signed a letter asking President Donald Trump to rescind his deal allowing Russian diesel exports. The senators said the deal damages American security interests, will have a negligible impact on fuel prices, and that the revenue the Kremlin receives will finance its war of attrition and advance its security co-operation with China, Iran and North Korea, endangering service members operating overseas. Trump said last week that Vladimir Putin had agreed in a call to supply millions of barrels of diesel to global markets, and the US Treasury Department has issued a special exemption as part of the deal, whose legality some elected officials have questioned.
Why it matters: The dispute places Russian energy exports at the centre of the briefing's energy security theme, linking export revenue to the war in Ukraine and to US domestic fuel prices before the November 3 midterm elections.