Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is leading a bipartisan group of lawmakers who have warned America's biggest banks, port authorities and fuel distributors that helping to bring Russian diesel into the United States could expose them to criminal and civil liability — because, the lawmakers say, the arrangement President Donald Trump struck with Russian President Vladimir Putin to open American and world markets to Russian diesel collides head-on with a 2022 law that bans Russian energy imports unless strict conditions are met first. The letters, sent on Saturday and released on Monday, went to the chief executives of JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and to the heads of the port authorities of Houston, Corpus Christi and Beaumont in Texas and of New York and New Jersey — the very ports where, by the lawmakers' account, vessel-tracking data shows tankers laden with Russian diesel on track to arrive as soon as the end of this month. The lawmakers also demanded that every recipient preserve all records relating to any proposed or actual Russian diesel transaction, and confirm in writing by Wednesday, October 28, that they have done so.
The warning lands on a deal that is still ringing in Washington's ears. On October 9, after speaking with Putin, Trump announced that Russia would immediately release 300,000 tonnes of diesel to the United States and global markets, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and a further one million tonnes after that — nearly two million tonnes in all. Within hours, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License 135, authorizing the sale, delivery, offloading and importation — including importation into the United States — of diesel fuel of Russian origin, an authorization that runs through April 7, 2027. The president's purpose, stated from the start, was price: diesel is the working fuel of the American economy, and its price had touched a record of about $6.53 a gallon at the end of September, after Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries tightened world supply and Moscow restricted its own diesel exports. Federal figures put the national average at about $6.28 a gallon in mid-October, up from $3.62 a year earlier. More supply, in the president's argument, means cheaper fuel for the truckers and farmers he has named again and again. On October 16, Trump used his waiver authority to set aside much of a brand-new sanctions law — the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, which he had signed only on September 18 after it passed the Senate 86-11 and the House 262-159 — so the diesel arrangement could proceed. And the fuel is already moving: the Malta-flagged tanker Agioi Fanendes loaded 40,000 tonnes of ultra-low-sulphur diesel at Russia's Baltic port of Primorsk on October 22 and is bound for New York, expected around November 7 — what would be the first U.S. import of Russian petroleum products since the 2022 ban. The Kremlin's spokesman has confirmed that a first ship under the arrangement has departed and that further shipments will continue at a steady pace.
The lawmakers' legal case rests on two statutes. Section 2 of the Ending Importation of Russian Oil Act of 2022 generally prohibits the importation of Russian-origin energy products, diesel fuel included, unless — after a period of consultation with Congress — the president certifies to Congress that Russia has ceased military hostilities in Ukraine, that Russia poses no immediate military threat to NATO members, and that Russia recognizes the right of Ukrainians to choose their own government. No such certification has been made. The letter also cites Section 216 of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which bars any licensing action that significantly alters U.S. foreign policy toward Russia before congressional review — a step the lawmakers say the administration has not taken. Against that backdrop, they wrote, "any importation of Russian diesel into the U.S. raises significant legal questions and may be subject to legal action, as well as congressional investigations," and companies that import products in violation of U.S. law "may expose themselves to both criminal and civil liability" under federal import laws — penalties that, they warned, can reach any company that knowingly buys Russian diesel or helps bring it in, not simply the importer of record.
"Granting Moscow the ability to freely sell Russian diesel in global markets damages America's security interests and is a betrayal of the people of Ukraine, who are defending themselves against Russia's murderous, illegal war," the lawmakers wrote, urging the banks and ports "not to facilitate the purchase, transportation, importation, unloading, storage, financing, or distribution of Russian-origin diesel in the United States" unless and until the law's requirements have been satisfied. Signing alongside Shaheen were Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Chris Coons of Delaware and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Representative Gregory Meeks of New York — a group heavy with the ranking Democrats of the Foreign Relations, Finance, Banking and Environment and Public Works committees, several of whom would take over those committees if their party wins control of Congress in the November 3 midterms. Tillis, a Republican who is retiring, has said publicly there is a "legitimate case" that the president is "not following the law" with the diesel agreement. The preservation demand reaches contracts, invoices, shipping and vessel records, payment records and communications with U.S. government officials dating back to September 1 — records, the lawmakers said, demanded "in anticipation of further congressional oversight of this matter."
The senators' letter was not the only warning to land on Monday. Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote to the oil industry itself — the American Petroleum Institute, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers — putting their members on notice that a Treasury license cannot override the ban Congress wrote into law. Companies that take part, Raskin warned, face civil penalties of up to twice the value of the transaction and criminal penalties of up to $1 million in fines and 20 years in prison, and a ten-year statute of limitations means the exposure would long outlast this administration: those who participate, he wrote, "will undoubtedly be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law, whether in this Administration — or the next." The pressure has been building for weeks and runs across party lines. On October 13, twelve senators — six Democrats and six Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John Cornyn — wrote to Trump urging him to rescind the arrangement outright, calling it "a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies," and a bipartisan group of 22 House lawmakers has separately urged the administration to revoke General License 135 and enforce the sanctions law Congress passed in September.
The White House is not yielding an inch. An administration official defended the Treasury authorization as "in compliance with all applicable laws" and consistent with similar licensing actions taken before, and the Treasury Department did not immediately respond to the lawmakers' letters. White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers accused the Democrats of telegraphing that "they have no agenda to improve the lives of Americans and will instead continue their decade-long obsession with investigating President Trump," adding: "This President has done more than anyone else to bring this brutal war — a war that never would have started if he were President — to an end." Trump made the case himself on Sunday, before boarding Air Force One: "The only deal we made with Russia, frankly, they released oil into the world," he said. "We're not gonna be hostage with the oil industry." Asked about the Republicans who have broken with him over the arrangement, he answered: "Well, I think these are Republicans that can't really be serious. And it's not really a deal with me. It's a deal for the rest of the world." In the president's telling, the arrangement is a supply move aimed squarely at the price of the fuel that moves American freight — made while he pursues an end to the war — and the license his Treasury issued is the lawful instrument that allows it.
For ordinary Americans, what is at stake sits at the pump and on the grocery shelf. Diesel moves nearly everything the country eats and buys: it powers the trucks on the interstates, the trains behind them, farm machinery at harvest and construction equipment on every site. At about $6.28 a gallon — close to double the price of a year ago — every mile of that costs more, and the difference lands in the price of food and goods for every family in the country. That is the burden the administration says the Russian supply is meant to ease, and why the president has pitched the deal to farmers and truckers by name: nearly two million tonnes of additional diesel, flowing into a market short of it, is supply that pushes prices down. The senators' answer is that the relief would be bought the wrong way — with American purchases sending revenue to the Kremlin while its war on Ukraine continues, energy being Russia's largest source of income — and, in their account, bought unlawfully, by a license they say cannot override the ban Congress enacted. Analysts who track the trade also note the arithmetic of the opening act: the first cargo, about 300,000 barrels, is a small fraction of a single day's American diesel use, so any early relief at the pump would be limited and would grow only if the full announced schedule actually ships. Both claims are now in front of the same audience — the banks, ports and fuel companies holding a Treasury license that says proceed, and a letter from senior lawmakers that says the law says otherwise, with every record to be kept either way. Their answers are due Wednesday, and the first tankers are due within days.
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