The Law Against Russian Oil, Turned Into a Purchase Order

Last September, the president set the standard in his own voice. He demanded NATO allies stop buying Russian energy at once, called the practice shameful hypocrisy, and put 50% tariffs on India for buying Russian oil anyway ^[1]. His question to the buyers then was the whole argument.

They have to immediately cease all energy purchases from Russia. Otherwise, we are all wasting a lot of time. — Donald Trump

Seven months ago the principle was armed. The war launched against Iran in early March was built, on the record, as a weapon against China's cheap energy — a plan to seize proxy control of Iranian oil and gas and force Beijing into a trade deal ^[2]. Nearly half of China's crude arrived through the Strait of Hormuz; flows fell by as much as 75 percent, and tariffs ran to 93 percent, with a demand that Beijing halt its purchases of sanctioned Russian and Iranian crude ^[3]. The president stated the war's purpose plainly.

If I had my choice, what would I like to do? Take the oil, because it’s there for the taking. — Donald Trump

On September 18 the principle became statute. The Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act passed 86-11 in the Senate and 262-159 in the House, granting the president authority to levy tariffs up to 100 percent on the five largest importers of Russian crude and gas ^[4]. Planted inside it was the clause that would do the work: a national-security waiver, the standard escape hatch that lets a president set aside his own sanctions when he declares doing so serves the national interest. Then October. On October 8 the administration waived, nationwide through the end of 2026, the rule that keeps red-dyed diesel — the untaxed fuel meant for farms and off-road machines — off the highway, the waiver's own text naming the cause as a conflict in Iran and the resulting blockage of oil in the Strait of Hormuz ^[5]. Two days later Russia lifted its own diesel export ban as a direct consequence of the Trump-Putin supply agreement, leaving the supply valve in Moscow, renewable at Russian discretion ^[6]. Energy Secretary Chris Wright described the administration as working with Vladimir Putin to release Russian diesel into global markets to incentivize an end to the war in Ukraine ^[7]. Five weeks after the statute, the clause was used: 4.8 million tons of Russian diesel contracted through April 2027, bought to lower the price at the American pump ^[8][9]. In the same week, the president cut military aid to Ukraine by 99 percent, and told Americans on the same day to accept temporarily higher gas prices as the price of stopping Iran's nuclear program ^[8].

I think it’s one of the greatest things we’ve done. We’ve stopped Iran from having a nuclear weapon. — Donald Trump

The stated reason for the purchase was the price of fuel — a squeeze the Iran war had driven into a consumer-sentiment reading of 48.0, the second lowest on record, making affordability the central issue of a campaign with the House at risk ^[10]. The president offered another reason alongside it: the release of an American prisoner, whom he said the sanctions would have cost ^[11]. No official has tied the aid cut to the diesel deal; the two sit side by side in the same week. Kyiv, meanwhile, is striking the very fuel infrastructure Washington has just contracted. The deep-strike unit — Kairos, now the 7th Separate Center — has been hitting Russian refineries, gas terminals, and tankers: sixty ships in the Sea of Azov in a single month, and four Moscow airports closed in a night ^[12][13][14]. Washington is pressing Kyiv to stop hitting refineries. Kyiv speaks through Zelensky, unspent.

It’s a pity that we are losing a strong partner. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Some of those strikes wrecked the AI chips inside Russian data centers — damage that may take months to repair under existing export restrictions — even as Moscow pitches Washington a partnership on building new nuclear-powered data centers ^[15][16]. The partnership Washington is now proposing runs on the same logic the war was built on: countering China. Oil and gas infrastructure, Siberian critical minerals, nuclear data centers, hydroelectric dams, Arctic logistics — all pitched as a way to shift the rivalry with Beijing in Washington's favor ^[16]. The record runs the other way. China has stockpiled a third of the world's oil, cut imports 23 percent in the war's first six months, and restricted its own fuel exports to punish governments at odds with it ^[17]. The war is reported to have accelerated, not reversed, the post-Western turn ^[18]. And a Putin-Trump-Xi summit is set for Shenzhen next month ^[11]. Seven months in, the instruments have not passed a single test. The pump: heating oil is still above $6 a gallon, from $3.50 a year ago, and the shortage the buyer is being paid to relieve has two parents — the IEA traces part of the missing diesel to reduced Russian supply ^[19][20]. A market analysis on the record, though contested, predicts prices collapse by mid-January regardless of policy ^[21]. Congress: the Senate has legislated the opposite direction, 86-11 ^[22]. The target: China is not squeezed. The ally: Kyiv is escalating, not complying. So seven months in, what exists is a waiver, a contract, and a promise — paper dated one week before the vote — beneath a law still pointed at buyers of Russian oil. The United States has just become one.