WASHINGTON — The Republican who represents Eastern Washington in Congress and the Democrat running to unseat him both said Tuesday they oppose President Donald Trump's new deal to import Russian diesel into the United States.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner said in an interview he was surprised when Trump announced Friday he had struck a deal with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to lift sanctions on Russian diesel exports in an effort to lower prices for Americans. The move came after Baumgartner and most of his fellow Republicans in Congress voted in September to impose new sanctions on Russia, and it represents a sharp change of course after the U.S. government had long sought to cut off funding for the Kremlin's war machine in Ukraine.
"We had just voted for new sanction tools on Russia, which I support, and I don't quite get the announcement," Baumgartner said. "You can mark me down as surprised and not a fan of the announcement."
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump said he had "just concluded a highly successful discussion" with Putin, who had agreed to sell 300,000 tons of diesel "to the American and Global Marketplace" before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, followed by 500,000 tons in November and another 1 million tons "immediately thereafter." As a result, the president said, "Diesel Prices for Americans and, indeed, the World, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!"
The initial 300,000 tons — equivalent to about 2.2 million barrels of diesel — is less than the 2.9 million barrels the U.S. transportation sector alone uses in a single day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Spread over a month, that represents about 2% of U.S. demand, and Goldman Sachs estimated on Monday the full amount Russia agreed to sell — 4.8 million metric tons — would reduce wholesale diesel prices by $1 to $2, or just a few cents per gallon.
Carmela Conroy, a Democrat challenging Baumgartner in a rematch of the 2024 race, said she understands the need to lower diesel prices but doesn't think Trump's deal with Putin will accomplish that.
"It doesn't seem like it's that great of a deal for Americans, that it's going to have that much of a positive impact on American consumers," she said. "But it waives all the sanctions on Russian diesel, so Russia now has a revenue stream to be able to continue its war on Ukraine, which was a war of aggression that we are opposed to."
Both Conroy and Baumgartner worked overseas for the U.S. State Department before turning to elective office, and they expressed similar concerns about the deal's impact on relations between the United States and its traditional allies. Conroy called it "a remarkable betrayal of American principles and American laws and the system that we underwrote at the end of World War II to help us all do better together," while Baumgartner said he would prefer to source more diesel from allies in the Western Hemisphere.
"I don't think the deal is going to have a huge impact on prices, just because of the distance and the amounts involved," he said. "If we were looking to put extra refined products on the market, I'd like to see more domestic refineries, and I'd rather they come from — if they have to choose from a foreign country — rather they come from Canada."
The best way to lower the cost of goods, Baumgartner said, is to increase their supply. He also blamed Washington's unusually high diesel tax, $0.59 per gallon, for making the problem worse.
According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of diesel on Tuesday was $7.28 in Washington and $6.35 in Idaho, an increase from a year earlier of about 45% in Washington and 68% in Idaho.
On Tuesday, a group of senators — six Republicans and six Democrats — sent Trump a letter calling the deal with Putin "a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies" and asking the American president to rescind it. The letter was signed by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but not by the panel's Republican chairman, Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho.
"I certainly hope that given the minuscule, practically imperceptible benefit to American consumers, that Congress will step up and stop the administration from doing this," Conroy said.
Both the House and Senate are in recess until after Election Day, and the Republican majorities in both chambers have shown little appetite to resist Trump, even as the president's approval rating among Americans averaged about 37% as of Tuesday. With three weeks until voters choose which party controls Congress in 2027, it's unclear whether his gambit to lower diesel prices will help or hurt his fellow Republicans seeking office.
Talking to reporters on Tuesday, the president seemed to back away from his deal — which days earlier he said was for "lower prices for Americans" — calling it "a deal for the world," not "a USA deal."
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