A month after Donald Trump promised a landmark diesel deal with Vladimir Putin would rescue Americans from record fuel prices, not a single drop of Russian diesel has landed on US soil.
The arrangement, unveiled on Truth Social in late October, cast Moscow as an emergency supplier, with Trump declaring that Russia would immediately ship more than 300,000 tons of diesel to American and global markets to break a fuel crisis.
It has done the opposite of what it promised. European allies were blindsided, Ukraine and Washington's partners watched years of sanctions on Russia's war economy suddenly soften, and the tankers meant to deliver the fuel never arrived.
At the pump, the relief never came. A gallon of diesel that cost $6.19 on October 5 still sold for $6.29 a month later, and Americans went to the polls on November 3 to hand Democrats control of both the Senate and the House.
Three cargoes turned away before reaching the US. The Malta-flagged tanker Agioi Fanendes, carrying roughly 40,000 tons of Russian diesel, reversed course some 400 nautical miles from New York this week after a governor and lawmakers warned that its landing would break federal law.
The scale doomed the deal from the start. The full 1.8 million tons amounts to about 13.5 million barrels, a fraction of the 3.6 million barrels Americans burn every day and just a quarter of the fuel the US already imports, most of it from Canada.
Legal barriers deepened the futility. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill warned that ports accepting Russian diesel could expose businesses to civil and criminal penalties, while senators from both parties hold that US law bars Russian energy imports until Moscow ends its war on Ukraine.
Only Moscow appears to have gained. Russian diesel exports abroad more than doubled in October, jumping from 135,000 barrels a day to 271,000, even as the US received nothing, leaving Trump's allies angrier and his promised price relief nowhere in sight.