Trump's diesel deal with Russia is unlikely to significantly lower global fuel prices despite expectations of rapid relief
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As the world's largest diesel exporter, the US benefits from high prices. At home, however, consumers are feeling the strain of rising living costs. Why Donald Trump's deal with Russia is unlikely to change that.
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With or without a deal with Russia, diesel prices on global markets are unlikely to fall significantly anytime soon.
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That is the assessment of experts interviewed by DW regarding the latest fuel-supply agreement between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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"The main reason for high diesel prices is the war in Iran and the simultaneous disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait," said Samina Sultan, a foreign trade expert at the German Economic Institute (IW) in Cologne.
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The situation has led to production outages and made fuel shipments "more expensive, less secure and more difficult," she said.
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Trump's deal with Russia also has an additional geopolitical dimension, Sultan said: "It causes the wars in Ukraine and Iran to become completely intertwined."
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Things are looking up, though. Roughly 13.5 million barrels of crude oil are once again flowing through the Strait of Hormuz a day, according to shipping and commodities analytics firm Kpler.
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But for refined products such as diesel, volumes remain far lower at around 677,000 barrels per day, compared with 3.6 million barrels before the war.
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Carsten Fritsch, a commodities analyst at Commerzbank, also attributes the price increases to the wars.
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"If nothing changes in Ukraine and the Middle East, I see very few ways to resolve these supply bottlenecks," he said.
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In a social media post on October 9, Trump announced that he would temporarily suspend some sanctions on Russia and begin importing Russian diesel.
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He wrote "diesel prices for Americans and, indeed, the world, will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!" in a mix of lowercase and all caps.
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Russia confirmed the arrangement. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state news agency TASS on October 13 that supplying diesel fuel was "in the interests of Russia, the United States and global energy markets."
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Diesel prices in the US and many EU countries have risen sharply over the past 12 months.
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According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), prices in the US have climbed by about 60% and now stand at $6.30 per gallon, equivalent to $1.66 (or €1.49) per liter of diesel.
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But even if Russia were able to flood global markets with cheap diesel, prices would not fall nearly as much as they recently rose, something all of the experts contacted by DW agree on.
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Many refineries around the Gulf region have suffered disruptions or damage, while transporting fuel via shadow fleets and securing insurance remains costly, cumbersome and risky.
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Another key shift is that Russia is no longer the world's largest diesel exporter. In fact, it is facing its own fuel shortages at home.
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The US is now the world's biggest diesel exporter. In 2025, it exported an average of 1.26 million barrels of diesel per day, accounting for roughly 15.4% of global diesel exports.
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At the same time, Russia fell to second place with a 9.5% share, and that was before major Ukrainian drone attacks on its refineries.
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Besides the new US-Russia diesel agreement, Trump also recently floated the idea of US diesel export restrictions. But the idea was abandoned because it could lead to even higher diesel prices in the country, according to Samina Sultan.
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"There simply is not enough diesel storage capacity in the United States," Sultan said. "Production would have to be reduced, and then prices would rise again."
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To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video If the US were to impose export restrictions on diesel, buyers in Latin America and the European Union would be hit particularly hard.
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Since Russia invaded Ukraine, EU countries have increasingly imported diesel from the US instead of Russia because of sanctions. "An export ban merely redistributes the shortage; it does not solve it," said ING chief economist Carsten Brzeski.
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"Global prices would continue to rise, while refineries would scale back production as margins shrink," he added.
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Export restrictions aside, few people consider that the US-Russia diesel deal will have any big impact.
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According to calculations by the platform The World Data, the promised shipment of 2.2 million barrels of diesel from Russia would not even cover a single day's US diesel demand of roughly 4 million barrels.
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Even if all of the diesel volumes announced by Trump were combined, totaling 35.8 million barrels, they would only cover about nine days of US domestic demand.
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"I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW MUCH OF A NOTHING BURGER THIS IS," Canadian oil market analyst Rory Johnston wrote in an all-caps post on X shortly after the announcement.
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Russia would normally export almost 10 times that volume if its refinery fleet was not being targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks, he added.
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Canada also supplies diesel to the United States.
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Roughly 80% of all US diesel imports come from its northern neighbor. Given Trump's verbal attacks on Canada and the ongoing trade dispute, analysts view the prospect of Canada supplying significantly more diesel to the US as highly unlikely.
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This piece was originally published in German.
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