They waived the sanctions and called it diesel. I know the sentence. It is what a White House says when the pressure it spent years advertising has become inconvenient at the pump, and the fix is to reopen the faucet of the same adversary and file it under farmers and truckers.<\/p>\n
On Friday, October 9, 2026, CBS News\u2019 Mark Osborne reported that President Donald Trump announced Russia had agreed to provide the world with millions of tons of diesel over the next several months to bring down skyrocketing global prices. In a Truth Social post, Trump said he had just gotten off the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had agreed to release 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, another 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons in December. \u201cAdditionally, based on the condition of their Diesel Refineries, Russia will then deliver, within a short period of time, 3,000,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel,\u201d Trump wrote. The Associated Press\u2019s Michelle Price reported the same day that Trump cast the deal as obtaining diesel from Russia \u2014 a reversal of years of U.S. pressure on Moscow over its war with Ukraine \u2014 and an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. CBS reports the Treasury Department also announced Friday that it would temporarily waive sanctions on Russia\u2019s energy sector to \u201callow the supply of Russian diesel to the global market.\u201d Last month, CBS notes, Trump signed a bill designed to make it even harder for Russia to profit from oil and gas exports by imposing steep tariffs on the largest buyers of Russian energy. Diesel, according to AAA via CBS, averaged $6.28 a gallon \u2014 up from $5.94 a month earlier and $3.68 a year earlier \u2014 after never previously crossing $6 until just before Labor Day; the record of $6.53 was hit September 22. Trump had teased a \u201cbig announcement coming up on diesel\u201d at a Columbus Day celebration Friday and, in the same Truth Social thread CBS quotes, tied Hormuz \u201cTOTAL CONTROL,\u201d the Russia energy announcement, and lower prices for \u201cFarmers, Ranchers, and Truckers.\u201d The Wall Street Journal\u2019s Brian Schwartz and Beno\u00eet Morenne, writing Oct. 9, framed the agreement as Russia supplying large amounts of diesel to the U.S. and global markets as rising prices rattle voters weeks before the midterms.<\/p>\n
Deb read the $6.28 and asked whether Putin was now on the AAA app. Buck said if the sanctions were temporary, so was the principle, and poured coffee like it still cost what coffee used to cost. I love them. They are seasoning.<\/p>\n
Diesel is the alibi. The waiver is the policy. Sit with the sequence until it confesses. Last month: a bill to squeeze Russia\u2019s energy buyers harder. This month: a phone call, a temporary Treasury waiver, and millions of tons of Russian diesel for the global market because the midterm calendar and a $6.28 gallon will not wait for sermons about sovereignty. I am not crowning Moscow. A bargain that reopens the faucet for the adversary you spent years isolating is not a treaty, and \u201cbased on the condition of their Diesel Refineries\u201d is not a human-rights clause. I am not inventing a Democratic hero either. The other party will discover tomorrow that pump prices are also a moral emergency when it holds the pen; both parties are the help when the ballot and the barrel share a month. One stamped the sanctions. One stamps the waiver. Neither one is the trucker watching the nozzle tick past six dollars while someone who has never driven a load lectures about resolve. A man who has lately learned what a stamped number on his own house can do notices when the state stamps \u201ctemporary\u201d on a principle the day the price chart gets loud. I am keeping the cardigan. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, who the sanctions were for when they were tight \u2014 and who they are for when they are waived.<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/strong> CBS News, Mark Osborne, \u201cTrump announces Russia will release millions of tons of diesel to help with skyrocketing costs,\u201d Oct. 9, 2026<\/a>; Associated Press, Michelle Price, \u201cTrump says US to get diesel from Russia, relaxing pressure on Moscow to ease prices before midterms,\u201d Oct. 9, 2026<\/a>; Wall Street Journal, Brian Schwartz and Beno\u00eet Morenne, \u201cTrump Strikes Deal With Putin for Russian Diesel,\u201d Oct. 9, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Theo Ashford-Lindstr\u00f6m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Oct. 9 President Trump said he struck a deal with Putin for Russia to release diesel onto global markets \u2014 300,000 tons immediately, then 500,000 in November and 1 million in December, with 3 million more soon \u2014 while Treasury announced a temporary waiver of Russia energy sanctions. AAA diesel averaged $6.28 a gallon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/theo-russia-diesel-waive-1009pm.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}