REVERSE COURSE

Quick question for you. When does a 2022 import ban become interesting again? Right after the midterms notice the pump, and right after we wrote BREAKING NEWS: SANCTIONS BY THE TON.

“Immediately reverse course”

On Sunday, seven senators, four Republicans and three Democrats, demanded that the Trump administration drop the Russian diesel plan: Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Curtis (R-Utah), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.). The joint statement went out from Collins’s office and from Shaheen’s Foreign Relations Committee office. The Associated Press story, carried by the Los Angeles Times, counted six signers and left out Wyden. Both Senate releases list seven.

Their line: “The United States should not provide Putin with a financial lifeline while Russia continues to kill Ukrainian civilians. The Administration must immediately reverse course.”

They say Congress “explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022,” that Trump’s decision “runs directly counter to that law,” and that the administration “failed to consult with Congress or submit any explanation to justify its decision as required by statute.”

REVERSE COURSE is the whole demand. The statute woke up when the diesel deal did.

The U.S. Capitol’s west front. Seven senators say Trump’s Russian diesel plan runs counter to the 2022 Russian energy import ban and skipped the consultation the law requires. Credit: Architect of the Capitol, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Tillis, Bessent, Barrasso: three costumes, one pump

On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Tillis said: “I do believe there’s a legitimate case for saying the president’s not following the law,” per Al Jazeera, drawing on Reuters and AP. He tied his support to a fix: “If the president wants my support, which I believe he should get for funding military operations and year-end funding beyond baseline funding, I think the president needs to understand this is a problem, and I’m not the only Republican concerned with this.” And he pointed at the real price driver: “If President Trump wants to end the strain on energy supplies, number one, get things right in Iran, and number two, recognise that it was Vladimir Putin, not Zelenskyy, that started this war.”

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went the other way on “Fox & Friends,” per a Reuters story carried by Devdiscourse: “We’re going to do it with all the legal authorities we have. So, you know, anyone in Congress who says whether it’s an old bill or the current Lindsey Graham bill (that) prohibits us from doing it is wrong.” His case: “This is good for the American people... bringing these diesel prices down.”

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), asked on CBS’s “Face the Nation” whether the deal breaks the law, answered with the cost of living: “The president is balancing and has to make tough decisions.” In the same breath he urged Trump to enforce the new sanctions law: “This is just another point of leverage for the president to use against Putin,” per the AP story.

Same weekend. Same diesel. Three sermons.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) in her official portrait. She joined six other senators in demanding that Trump “immediately reverse course” on Russian diesel imports. Credit: U.S. Senate, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

The deal they want reversed

On Friday, Trump announced that Russia would supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel immediately, 500,000 tons in November and 1 million tons “immediately thereafter,” with 3 million more “within a short period of time,” per the AP. Treasury’s General License 135 cleared the paperwork through April 7, 2027. Just weeks earlier, Congress had passed a law directing Trump to impose substantial tariffs on the top importers of Russian oil and natural gas. Then Treasury handed out a diesel hall pass.

A gasoline pump in Indiana during the September 2005 price spike. The White House sells the diesel deal as cost-of-living relief; seven senators say it bankrolls Putin and conflicts with the 2022 import ban. Credit: Derek Jensen (Tysto), public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Now the bipartisan statement arrives like a fire extinguisher two days late.

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The red costume: tough on Putin, soft on his diesel

Republicans, you don’t get to cheer “tremendous sanctions,” name a sanctions law after Lindsey Graham, and then shrug when the tanker shows up.

Four of the seven names on the statement are Republicans: Collins, Murkowski, Tillis and Curtis. Notice who is loudest. Tillis is leaving; Al Jazeera notes he announced in June 2025 that he would not seek re-election after Trump threatened him with a primary. The rest of the conference is doing cost-of-living cosplay while Putin collects the invoice. Barrasso’s “tough decisions” and Bessent’s “all the legal authorities we have” can both work as politics. They cannot both be a sanctions policy.

Your party can’t call Putin the aggressor on “Meet the Press” and wave his diesel through on “Fox & Friends” in the same news cycle.

The blue costume: legality warriors on a midterm clock

Democrats, welcome back to the statute.

Shaheen, Blumenthal and Wyden are right about the law. They are also right on schedule: three weeks before the midterms, with gas prices as the campaign weather. Selective energy moralism is a bipartisan sport. Biden-era Democrats kept Russian barrels moving under a price-cap theory when inflation was the villain; we walked that tape in SANCTIONS BY THE TON. Now the 2022 ban is a sacred text again. Fine. Mean it in January too, not just in October.

If legality only matters when the pump polls badly, you aren’t defending the statute. You’re booking midterm theater.

Both costumes

Farmers and truckers feel real diesel pain. Iran has limited commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz since the U.S.-Israel war began in February, per Al Jazeera. None of that turns a sanctions regime into a vibe.

Red cheered toughness, then bought the product. Blue rediscovered the ban when the calendar got close. Tillis says maybe illegal. Bessent says we’ll do it anyway. Seven senators say reverse course. Putin already heard the only sentence that mattered on Oct. 9: the license.

Mute one cable hit from each side and ask which principle survives if prices fall next week. If the answer changes with the pump, it was never the statute. It was the midterm.

Receipts

• Sen. Collins joint statement, Oct. 11, 2026. Seven senators; “immediately reverse course”; 2022 ban; failure to consult or justify “as required by statute.”
• Sen. Shaheen, Foreign Relations Committee release, Oct. 11, 2026. Same statement; same seven names, including Wyden.
• Los Angeles Times (AP, Kevin Freking), Oct. 11, 2026. Six-senator count; Trump’s diesel tonnages; Barrasso on “Face the Nation”; Congress’s recent tariff directive on buyers of Russian oil and gas.
• Al Jazeera (with Reuters and AP), Oct. 11, 2026. Tillis on “Meet the Press”: “legitimate case,” funding leverage, Iran and Putin quotes; Tillis retirement; Hormuz traffic.
• Devdiscourse (Reuters), Oct. 11, 2026. Bessent on “Fox & Friends”: “all the legal authorities we have”; “bringing these diesel prices down.”
• Earlier Hypocrisy Democracy: BREAKING NEWS: SANCTIONS BY THE TON.

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Originally published on Substack.