Trump’s Diesel Deal With Putin Will Make Almost No Difference To US Voters, Economist Warns

The US president shockingly announced that he would be temporarily lifting sanctions on Russia and importing millions of tonnes of its diesel on Friday.

The move unpicks years of united western efforts to put economic pressure on Putin over his war in Ukraine and was condemned as an “absolutely terrible” decision by Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It’s widely believed Trump made the controversial move in the hope to woo American voters ahead of the midterm elections next month.

But expert and former director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, suggested the diesel agreement would only have a “very small” impact.

Asked what difference this will make to American consumers, he told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “On the surface at the moment, almost none.

“The amount of diesel that’s apparently going to made available over the next three months is less than a day’s consumption in the United States.

“That’s a very small amount indeed. What would make a difference would be sorting out what’s happening in Iran.

“Let’s be clear, president Trump has created this problem himself. This is a problem that was created not because of Ukraine and Russia in terms of diesel prices at the moment, this was created by war in the Middle East.”

The global economy has been under strain ever since Trump agreed to launch strikes at Tehran in February.

Iran responded by effectively closing the Strait of Hormuz, which transported approximately 20% of the world’s liquefied natural gas and 25% of the its seaborne oil trade.

Johnson continued: “Russia has got its own problems. Its refineries are being bombed in any case by Ukraine, prices in Russia are rising, [but] Russia is also able to export to other places elsewhere.

“President Trump might hope for a big benefit from this, I don’t think he’s going to get it.”

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