BERLIN—There is no greater irony in Donald Trump’s second presidency than the fact that the man who turned The Art of the Deal into a political religion increasingly looks like one of the worst dealmakers ever to occupy the White House. Every few days another “historic” breakthrough is proclaimed on Truth Social, preferably in capital letters, every phone call has been GREAT, every conversation HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL, every arrangement something that supposedly could only have been achieved by Donald J. Trump himself.
Then, once the smoke clears and the capital letters disappear from the screen, one discovers that America has usually surrendered something tangible in exchange for a headline. By now everyone can clearly see that Donald Trump has no tangible strategy for the world, the West and not even for America.
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The U.S. Energy Information Administration now expects American diesel to remain above six dollars a gallon in October. Since the Iran conflict began, diesel prices have risen dramatically faster than gasoline.
His latest diesel deal with Vladimir Putin may be the most grotesque example yet. After another supposedly successful conversation with the Russian president, Washington opened the door for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Russian diesel to return to the market, with considerably larger quantities promised afterwards. Trump immediately presented this, naturally, as another triumph for America’s farmers, ranchers and truckers, because diesel prices have become a genuine political problem ahead of the midterms. Bipartisan senators are now questioning both the wisdom and legality of relaxing restrictions on Russian energy while Moscow continues its war. Frankly said: this Diesel is drenched in the blood of Ukrainian Christians and murdered civilians.
There is, however, something almost comic about Trump pretending that Vladimir Putin has suddenly appeared to rescue Americans from high fuel prices. The principal reason diesel has become so brutally expensive is staring back at him from his own foreign policy: the war with Iran, launched with Israel in February and then allowed to metastasize across the Gulf, disrupting shipping, refining capacity and one of the most important energy arteries on earth. Not the president in Kyiv is to blame, but Donald Trump himself.
Before the war, roughly a fifth of global oil supply passed through the Strait of Hormuz. Months of fighting, attacks on tankers and infrastructure and sharply reduced traffic through the Strait have helped drain global inventories and tighten diesel markets. The U.S. Energy Information Administration now expects American diesel to remain above six dollars a gallon in October. Since the Iran conflict began, diesel prices have risen dramatically faster than gasoline. Trump is therefore attempting to cure the consequences of his own botched Iran war by making concessions to Vladimir Putin.
It is difficult to imagine a purer expression of his foreign policy than create one crisis through recklessness, discover that the crisis is becoming electorally inconvenient, and then create another strategic problem in order to produce a short-term domestic headline.
