As Europeans ‘Gorge’ on Putin’s Petroleum, Trump Is Pilloried for Allowing a Trickle of Russian Diesel to Flow

President Trump is easing sanctions on Russian diesel, drawing accusations of siding with the Kremlin over Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is countering that America’s European critics are the ones sucking up President Vladimir Putin’s petroleum and fueling the Kremlin’s war machine — ignoring Mr. Trump’s 2018 warning against doing just that.On Friday, Mr. Trump announced an agreement for Russia to sell about 2.25 million barrels of diesel into the global markets. That’s less than enough to fuel America’s transportation sector for 24 hours, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data, but it’s a step in easing the prices plaguing Americans.Condemnation was swift at the European Union summit on Friday. “Trump,” Prime Minister Ajdrej Babiš of the Czech republic said, “by doing that business with Putin, actually betrayed us.” President Emmanuel Macron of France said the deal “is not good for anyone” and “sends a negative signal.”Ireland’s foreign minister, Helen McEntee, called the deal “concerning,” despite her country purchasing almost $40 million in Russian fuels, oils, and distillations last year alone. The German minister of state for Europe, Gunther Krichbaum, said that “every euro and dollar that flows to Russia in payment for energy purchases will be used to … attack Ukraine.”Lithuania’s foreign minister, Kęstutis Budrys, said buying fuel from Russia “is not the European way.” This assertion and the posturing by others, ignores reality. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Commission says that E.U. members have purchased over $209 billion worth of the Kremlin’s fossil fuels.Since the war began, the EU has reduced its imports of Russian gas to some 12 percent of the bloc’s total gas imports, from about 40 percent, with an anticipated phaseout by 2027. Russia puts its total energy exports to the EU since 2022 at $320 billion, 800 times larger than the $400 million in diesel covered by Mr. Trump’s deal. That said, trade between Russia and Europe has dropped sharply since the war started. The EU reports that “in 2025, total trade in goods between the EU and Russia amounted to €58.1 billion,” or $65 billion, compared with some $288 billion in 2021.Hungary is the biggest customer of Russian pipeline gas and energy; and France still buys liquefied natural gas, LNG, from the Kremlin, though America has recently become its top supplier.“Where’s the outrage,” Mr. Bessent asked on “Meet the Press” Sunday, “for the rest of the world?” He noted that the British in May had “waived their embargo on diesel and jet fuel made with Russian crude” but processed in other countries. But Mr. Zelensky — who said it’s “not fair and not honest” for America to allow Russian diesel to flow — “does not criticize his European partners,” only America.“The Europeans,” Mr. Bessent said, “are financing the Russian war machine. The U.S. imports $4 billion of Russian products,” about half of it fertilizer, while Europeans “import more than 10 times that.” He repeated a statement he’d made earlier on Fox News that Europe has “given Russia and Vladimir Putin more money than they’ve given the Ukrainians.”The Europeans, Mr. Bessent said, “continue to gorge on Russian energy.” He cited the Yamal LNG facility 1,550 miles northeast of Moscow. “In the first six months of the year,” all but four of its 140 shipments “went to Europe, to Belgium, to Spain, to France, to the Netherlands — over $8 billion,” 20 times more, alone, than Mr. Trump’s diesel purchase.“Why,” Mr. Bessent asked, “should the U.S. bear the burden?” Europe not only excuses its quiet reliance on Russian fuel, its leaders have rejected Mr. Trump’s warnings that their purchases would put them and not America — the world’s largest exporter of oil — in Mr. Putin’s debt.In September 2018, four years after Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, Mr. Trump urged Europeans to wean themselves off Russian energy or risk feeding more aggression. “Reliance on a single foreign supplier,” he said at the UN, “can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation.”Mr. Trump warned that Berlin would “become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.” The German delegation was seen laughing at the prediction. After the resumption of hostilities in 2022, Germany kept the tap open, importing over $26 billion in Russian petroleum, only later working to zero out its purchases.“Why should the U.S. go it alone?” Mr. Bessent asked on Sunday of banning the Kremlin’s petroleum products. As the world’s second-largest oil producer, Russia has a role to play in supplying energy and stabilizing prices on the global market. Accepting that reality isn’t a betrayal of Ukraine. It’s just the European way.

As Europeans ‘Gorge’ on Putin’s Petroleum, Trump Is Pilloried for Allowing a Trickle of Russian Diesel to Flow

As Europeans ‘Gorge’ on Putin’s Petroleum, Trump Is Pilloried for Allowing a Trickle of Russian Diesel to Flow

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