Will Trump’s Russian Diesel Deal Lower Prices?

President Trump is met with bipartisan pushback over a deal to buy Russian diesel that may do little to lower prices. Plus, Yemen's Houthis strike at the heart of Saudi society, as Riyadh Reels will look at whether the U.S. will join the fight. The Trump administration and the President himself are going to come under a lot of pressure. They're caught between that need and that there isn't a feasible use of military force, that will make much difference to the way the Utsis go about their business. And how a cohort of practically unknown donors are boosting the new left ahead of the midterms. It's Monday, October 12. I'm Luke Farguest for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving our world today. President Trump is facing bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill over his decision to allow Russia to export oil to the U.S. That move on Friday comes as the President is moving quickly to ease energy prices ahead of the midterms and to position himself as a peacemaker. With more, I'm joined by our Marcus Walker. Marcus, what are we hearing from lawmakers in response to this diesel deal? So my colleagues in Washington have been talking to lawmakers from both parties, and there are definitely doubts and some criticism of what Trump announced, of the diesel deal that on the face of it, many lawmakers from both sides think goes against the 2022 sanctions law after Russia invaded Ukraine, that bans Russian energy imports, and that could only be lifted once Russia has stopped its invasion. And there was a bipartisan group of senators that issued a statement on Sunday calling Trump's export deal illegal and contrary to that sanctions law. This deal, we should say, isn't the only thing that is drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill because on Saturday, Trump really laid into Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky over a range of issues. Let's take a listen to what he had to say. Zelensky could have settled this war many times, many, many times, and he chooses not to. It's very difficult. We said you could do whatever you want to, Russia, don't hit the refineries because that's a world problem that's caused. And he wants to make problems for the world. He wants to make problems for our farmers, our ranchers, with diesel fuel. Marcus Trump even went on to call for Ukraine to get a new president. It feels like we are back to early last year, are we not, with that shouting match in the Oval Office? Indeed. This is probably the lowest point in Trump's relationship with Ukraine since that February of 2025, clashing in the Oval Office, and it really looks like a year and a half of strenuous attempts by Europe and Ukraine to try and patch up the relationship and get Trump on Ukraine and Europe's side have very quickly fallen apart. Most European countries think that this is under the pressure of the midterm elections and voted discontent in the US about fuel prices, and that Trump is urgently searching to show that he's doing something about fuel prices and that Ukraine is paying the price. I mean, separate from the optics of all of this, there's sort of a very practical test of US influence that we are going to see play out this week, right, over the president saying over the weekend that both Ukrainian and Russia had agreed to an energy ceasefire, meaning, you know, not attacking each other's energy facilities. And yet Moscow has so far rejected that deal, and there's no sign any agreement is actually in place. No, Russia has kept on bombing power stations in Ukraine and trying to destroy the power supply to Ukrainian cities, non-stop, including after Trump's announcement, which it seems neither key nor Moscow knew anything about. It really appears as if Trump was trying to will a deal into being, but there is no deal and really we're on a collision course now because Trump is insisting that Ukraine stop hitting Russian refineries, Ukraine is saying it really can't afford to do that because it is the one strategy, the one source of leverage that Ukraine really has to cut off the money that funds Russia's war efforts. So, you know, not putting pressure on Russia with the one, you know, strong card that they have to play would be a huge piece of self-harm by Ukraine if they agreed to this. I've been speaking to Marcus Walker, the journal's Ukraine bureau chief. Marcus, thank you so much. Thank you. And beyond the politics of the US, Russia, diesel deal, how likely is it to actually move the needle on prices between now and election day? It's a question I put to Andy Critchlow, the head of energy news at Dow Jones Energy. Over to you, Andy. Yeah. You know, the answer is, you know, very little impact that this is probably going to have in prices. We saw that at the back end last week. The reason for that is, you know, one market is really skeptical about the practicalities of doing this. There's lots of challenges around rolling back sanctions and just the logistics of bringing in diesel from a country like Russia, availability of shipping is one of them. And then on the other side of it, it's just the volumes that we're talking about here are pretty small in, you know, a three to four million barrel a day diesel market in the United States. 100,000 barrels a day is kind of less than four percent. So, you know, this is going to make very little difference at the pump for consumers if you're buying diesel in California. You're not going to really feel the effect of this. It's really about sentiment. I just got back from the Persian Gulf, met with a lot of oil and energy officials from the Gulf from the UAE and different parts of the region. The interesting one of the things they were saying to me was around sort of questioning why European governments are so intractable over this issue of doing some sort of deal with Russia given type supplies of energy. And their kind of view as well, you know, you would come to some commercial arrangement and you kind of part the politics to one side and make sure that you can get affordable energy. And it's a difference in mindset, in ideological view about how energy security works out and how that ties into border politics. To back up, you said sentiment, probably more so than three or four percent of new diesel supplies coming into the US are likely to be what's going to drive prices. We've just heard about the situation in Saudi Arabia and the situation in Ukraine and Russia where Trump says there's a, you know, a deal to stop attacks on energy. We see no evidence of that. It seems to me sentiment continues to go in the wrong direction. Yeah, that's right. The deal that was announced at the end of last week from the Trump administration in terms of turning around this tidal way of negativity around oil markets, energy markets at the moment. The schizophrenia almost around the availability of stocks. You know, we spoke to Chris Wright, the energy secretary at Journal House at the UN Journal Assembly in September. And he, you know, had to point very clearly that many of these European countries, they just don't have the stocks and, you know, there's a huge disparity in terms of what the market thinks they may have versus actually, you know, what is it in their stock tanks? And of course, when you have a tight market, when you've got bombs going off in Saudi Arabia, when you've got the straightforward news, tankers, literally hitting sea mines in that state at the moment, then flows are severely disrupted. Can the Trump announcement in terms of some sort of deal with Putin or the diesel change, that kind of sentiment, that kind of negativity, I don't think so. Andy Critchler, a pleasure as always. Thanks for the update. Thanks, Luke. For the second day in a row, Saudi Arabia's main international airport in Riyadh was attacked yesterday, killing one person after a missile strike on Saturday claimed 12 lives and left hundreds injured. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for both incidents, and here with more on what is now the single deadliest attack on the U.S. or one of its Gulf allies since the start of the Iran War is Journal Middle East editor Drew Dowell. Drew, we are just a week now into a Saudi counteroffensive against the Houthis, the objective of which was to kick them out of a key port in Yemen and reduce the threat to Saudi energy exports. That felt like a narrow enough mission, but given what we have seen over the weekend, is it possible here the Saudis have bit off more than they can chew? Yeah, I would say it really is. Analysts are pretty unanimous in saying that there's not a clear path for the Saudis to force the Houthis to back down. The Kingdom fought for seven years with the Houthis about a decade ago during Yemen's Civil War and ended up basically in a stalemate, then ended up with a ceasefire that was then just recently broken. So there's no real history of military action that's causing the back down. The Saudis certainly haven't demonstrated the willingness to bring enough force to bear to accomplish that, even if it were possible. And it's pretty significant. Their capital is under attack in the way we've seen it in the last few days. Our summer Said reporting, the Riyadh is basically a battle zone. People are taking cover, workers, some students, diplomats being ordered to evacuate. That's right. I mean, the Houthis have really brought the fight directly to the Center of Saudi Society, students are being schooled from home this week. The airport shut down again today after being shut down yesterday. It's also hitting right in the middle of an important conference season, getting underway for the Saudis. There's a big energy conference going on right now, where attendance is certainly going to be impacted by the fact that people can't get in or out through the airport. At the end of the month, there's the big FII conference, financial conference. And that's looking increasingly in doubt swell. So yeah, the capital is really under a lot of pressure at the moment. Finally, Drew, President Trump on Saturday said what the Houthis did was very bad. And he told reporters that the US now might join the Saudi strikes. They previously not done so. A, would that help and B, does the US have the firepower to actually affect much change in this conflict? Were the Pentagon to give the go ahead here? Yeah, I think that's the thing. Is that the Trump administration and the president himself are going to come under a lot of pressure? So the weekend and as these attacks continue and potentially escalate to look like it's doing something. I guess the point is just that before there was the Iran War, there was an operation rough writer at the beginning of the second Trump administration. where the US bombed the Houthis for 53 days, or so, dropping lots and lots of ordinance on a daily basis. And the Houthis mounted a pretty fierce fight in response. And that ended not in the annihilation of the Houthis as Trump had promised, but in a ceasefire where the Houthis and the US just promised not to attack each other anymore. So there doesn't seem to be a simple way for the US to respond in a way that would cause the Houthis to de-escalate. And now the US is of course embroiled in a war with Iran with its military forces already stretched with its air defense stockpiles are ready under pressure. So, you know, the idea of adding another theater to that war around another important energy choke point in the Red Sea is just a difficult proposition. Journal Middle East editor Drew Dowell, thanks so much for the update. Pleasure. And India's government has longed down the capital New Delhi and detained thousands in a bid to thwart voter rights protests that have swelled in the past week. The protesters, including the youth movement known as the Cockroach Janta Party, sought to intensify a nationwide campaign against a contentious government voter list cleanup, which according to activists strips around 130 million people of their voting rights. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government maintains that the revision was necessary to eliminate fraudulent entries, denying accusations that it's discriminating against India's Muslim minority. The Cockroach Janta Party has thrown support behind those protesting the voting issue, as anger over the voting lists has melded with grievances from young Indians struggling to find work. Coming up, we've got the rest of the day's news, including Amazon, making its move on an AI startup, plus a ruling to pull taxpayer-funded ads from the airwaves, those stories, and more. The US Treasury market is closed for Columbus Day, leaving investors to look ahead to a packed week of data. September inflation figures are due out on Wednesday, followed by producer prices and retail sales the day after. Fed Chairman Kevin Wars, meanwhile, is due to speak at the IMF on Friday, with World Bank and International Monetary Fund kicking off their meetings in Bangkok today. US bank earnings will also be in focus with JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs, all set to report results tomorrow. Well, as automakers gather in France for this year's Paris Motor Show, China is reporting a major pullback in its domestic car market, with September sales falling by more than a quarter during what should be peak sales season. The country has now seen 12 straight months of declining sales, with even popular EVs and plug-in hybrids unable to boost a market that's battling weak consumer confidence, high fuel prices, and rising memory chip costs that have slowed down the roll-out of new vehicles. VW echoed that sentiment this morning, reporting an almost 40% drop in its Q3 deliveries in the world's largest auto market. And we are exclusively reporting that Amazon is in talks to acquire AI startup DeCart in a deal that could be valued at around $7 billion. The San Francisco-based company makes software that allows developers to easily switch between different AI chips, a key capability as tech giants race to secure computing power and find alternatives to market leader Nvidia. DeCart also develops 3D interactive world models and was last valued at nearly $4 billion in May. A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop airing taxpayer-funded TV commercials featuring the president, ruling that the ads are likely illegal. The order bars the administration from using government money to broadcast the ads, which were paid for by the Department of Homeland Security. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment while the Justice Department in a weekend filing said that the ad buy was slated to end on Sunday. Well, speaking of the Justice Department, it's now probing major TV networks after they briefly suspended White House press pool coverage last month. Federal officials are investigating whether a coordinated pause in coverage by Fox News, ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC constituted in illegal group boycott. The network's temporarily halted pool reporting after the White House removed CNN from a travel assignment following a broader ban on several news outlets. Fox News, Parent, Fox Corp, and Wall Street Journal Parent News Corp share common ownership. And just over three weeks out from the midterms, fundraising for democratic socialists and other progressives is gaining momentum. A journal analysis has revealed that a crew of virtually unknown political donors, many of whom have never given to politics before, are powering the rise of the new left. Politics reporter Maggie Severns says those new financial backers skew younger and more diverse than previous donors work in fields like tech and medicine. There's a whole group of donors who have really been catalyzed by watching APAC spend so much in elections. That's the pro-Israel super PAC that spent a lot to help candidates that support Israel and that helped move some people to start spending and giving money to a super PAC that actually is there to be a counterweight to a PAC. Now the amounts of money that these people are giving often are pretty small compared to how much say Elon Musk was going to give tens and tens if not hundreds of millions to these midterm elections. We're talking about people who give up to a million dollars each, but that's still a lot of money that's still a lot more money than most people give to politics. The other folks that we found who are giving to help those on the left this fall tend to be these kind of more old school progressives that you may have heard of someone like George Soros who gives both the democratic establishment and then also just some candidates on the left. I think one of our takeaways in reporting this story was that this is in a movement that's aware that it doesn't need to compete some on the money front and some of these people are going to growing up and growing into a new era of leftist politics. And to read more about which campaigns those donors are funding we've left a link to Maggie's story in our show notes. And that's it for what's news for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer is Sandra Killhoff and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. And until then, thanks for listening.