I’d be angrier about this deal if I didn’t suspect that Trump tweeted this without any planning and when his flunkies try to act on it they’ll just get stuck asking Grok 'how do I import russian diesel" and never actually figure out how to do this.
I don’t know if this is a hot take, but I don’t think Trump’s administration knows how international business or oil shipping works. I legit don’t think they can figure out how to buy diesel from Russia.
Fly a helicopter over them (usually when they enter a country’s economic zone), drop some units onto the ship, check the registration, confirm that it’s fraudulent, seize the ship.
A few have been taken this way, but Russia has started sending military escorts and I assume they’re taking different routes. I haven’t seen any news for a while about how/if they’re dealing with the shadow fleet now.
I’d be angrier about this deal if I didn’t suspect that Trump tweeted this without any planning and when his flunkies try to act on it they’ll just get stuck asking Grok 'how do I import russian diesel" and never actually figure out how to do this.
I don’t know if this is a hot take, but I don’t think Trump’s administration knows how international business or oil shipping works. I legit don’t think they can figure out how to buy diesel from Russia.
Russia is currently importing gasoline, due to domestic shortages caused by the war.
Even if the US could buy it’s way out, I don’t think Russia has enough to sell
trading some of their limited fuel for dollars, though, might have some uses.
People in the US have largely not been paying attention while Ukraine has destroyed a ton of Russian petroleum infrastructure.
Maybe they just want an excuse to bully Ukraine into stopping attacking Russian oil refineries.
That, and Europe just figured out how to deal with a large portion of Russia’s shadow fleet. This gives that fleet US protection.
How are they dealing with them?
Fly a helicopter over them (usually when they enter a country’s economic zone), drop some units onto the ship, check the registration, confirm that it’s fraudulent, seize the ship.
A few have been taken this way, but Russia has started sending military escorts and I assume they’re taking different routes. I haven’t seen any news for a while about how/if they’re dealing with the shadow fleet now.
Yeah you got it on the nose