Who are you going to believe: the Trump administration, or your lying eyes?
Evidence accumulates by the day that President Donald Trump, feeling political pressure over high diesel prices (which are largely a consequence of the war in Iran) and further incensed by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to stop his attacks on Russian refineries, is aligning with Russia. The immediate goals of this alignment certainly look like they are to lower prices by allowing the purchase of Russian fuel (or at least look like every effort to reduce prices is being made before the midterms) and to pressure the Ukrainians into a peace deal—on terms that Kyiv would consider a surrender.
The list goes on. The Trump administration has also waived new punitive measures passed by Congress to pressure Russia. It has reportedly imposed restrictions on Ukraine military’s use of digital tools provided by Elon Musk’s SpaceX (as claimed by the Ukrainians but generally denied by the administration). And the Trump administration may even be withholding some of the early warnings Ukrainians previously received from the U.S. on Russian ballistic missile launches (ditto).
News broke on Sunday that during their October 9 phone call, Vladimir Putin pitched Trump on a trilateral meeting with China’s Xi Jinping to discuss ending the war in Ukraine, potentially on the sidelines of an upcoming multilateral summit being held in scenic Shenzhen. Trump appears not to have rejected the proposal.
There is no shortage of critics for this seeming U.S. realignment toward Russia, including among Senate Republicans. So when Energy Secretary Chris Wright took his turn as administration spokesman on the Sunday shows this weekend, rather than defend what appears to be the new policy, he instead tried to deny that there is any shift at all.
The purchase of diesel “is a carrot to try to end a war. It’s not an economic lifeline for Russia,” Wright said on ABC News’ This Week. After all, Wright pointed out, other sanctions on Russia remain in place. “The only way Russia gets benefit from this move means they have to export diesel, which means they have to either consume less diesel internally, reduce the war effort, or have an ability to repair their refineries, which they only can get to through a peace agreement with Ukraine, an energy ceasefire, or a step toward peace.”