Imperialist Delusions and the Price of Fuel

During the 2024 campaign Donald Trump promised to cut energy prices in half. He has, instead, presided over soaring prices at the pump, which have played an important role in his collapse in the polls. Some might attribute this disaster to Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, ignoring what appear to have been near-unanimous warnings by experienced military and intelligence officials that such a war would, in addition to disrupting oil supplies, overstretch the U.S. military and dangerously deplete stocks of munitions — which is exactly what happened. But Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury secretary, has found someone else to blame: Ukraine. Yesterday Bessent went on “Fox & Friends,” where he pinned the blame for high energy prices largely on Kyiv: We are going through an energy shock right now due to both the war in Ukraine, because Ukraine has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets and refined properties, so that is creating upward price pressure on a global basis, and the conflict in Iran. Now, Bessent isn’t wrong to say that bottlenecks in refining capacity are playing a major role in the current energy shock. The chart at the top of this post shows changes in the price of crude oil and diesel, both measured in dollars per barrel, since the beginning of this year. Crude oil is up a lot, although off its peak in early April. But diesel is up much more (so is gasoline, although not quite as much.) And Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities are certainly playing a role in reducing global refining capacity. But note Bessent’s wording: Ukraine “has decided that they want to blow up Russian energy assets.” Gosh, why would the Ukrainians want to do such a thing? Might it have something to do with the fact that they are engaged in an existential struggle against Vladimir Putin’s regime, which is in its fifth year of a war aimed at destroying their nation, and they need to hit back at Putin’s military and economic base? Notice, also, that Bessent didn’t point out that these attacks on Russian oil would end if Russia were to end its attempted war of conquest. But far from demanding an end to Russian aggression, the Trump administration infuriated the democratic nations of Europe by inviting Russia’s finance minister, for the first time since the Ukraine war began, to Monday’s meeting of the Group of 20 major economies. But wait: There’s more background here. Bessent, as much as or more than Trump, has been effectively an enemy of Ukraine from the beginning. Right at the beginning of the Trump II administration Bessent flew to Kyiv to demand that the Ukrainian government in effect hand over a large share of its mineral resources to the United States. I described it at the time as a “Belgian Congo” deal: What Trump suggested was that Ukraine give the United States half of the revenue it gets from resource extraction, as far as I can tell in perpetuity. Trump suggested that this would amount to $500 billion, although this seems like a wildly exaggerated sum. In return, Trump offered, well, zero. No additional aid, no security guarantees, no nothing. Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump offers more, damning detail. There was apparently a shouting match between Bessent and Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy, in which Zelenskyy correctly described Bessent’s proposal as a shakedown unenforceable under Ukrainian law. Bessent then returned to Washington and urged Trump not to even meet with Zelenskyy until he signed the minerals deal: “I’ve dealt with this little fucker,” Bessent would say to associates about Zelensky. “He’s tricky. He’s like the special-needs child for the Europeans. And he’s acting like Mr. Bean on crack.” Nonetheless, Trump did meet with Zelenskyy — and it was a disaster, including Trump’s famous insult, “You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now.” The Trump administration proceeded to cut off virtually all aid to Ukraine, presumably expecting Ukraine’s defense against Russia to collapse. Ukraine, however, declined to collapse. Aid from Europe replaced much of the lost American support: And the Ukrainians, though deprived of important U.S. weapons — especially Patriot interceptors — have if anything been gaining the upper hand in their war, thanks in part to their growing mastery of drone warfare. Russia’s ground offensive has stalled despite enormous casualties, while Ukraine is carrying out more and more long-range strikes, including, yes, strikes on Russia’s oil infrastructure. By the way, Ukraine’s success in drone warfare suggests that the government in Kyiv could offer the U.S. military, which has fared so badly against Iranian drones, quite a lot of help. But don’t expect Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon to ask for or receive such help. Anyway, now Bessent is blaming Ukraine for high fuel prices. Is he demanding, or maybe pleading, that the Ukrainians halt their strategic air campaign? If so, in return for what? After all, the Trump administration can’t threaten to cut off aid — it already did that long ago. It can’t offer to help Ukraine plug the one big hole in its defense technology, its lack (so far) of effective interceptors against ballistic missiles, because the U.S. has depleted its own stock of such interceptors in its Iran debacle. So while I’m sure that Bessent and Trump wish that Ukraine would stop blowing up Russian energy assets — they would demand that Ukraine stop, if they could — they can’t, in practice, do anything to change Ukraine’s war strategy. To put it bluntly, they’re not in a good position. They don’t have the cards. No music. Sorry. They don’t have any cards and they don’t have any friends. It’s a natural consequence of being “vile and deeply stupid” (love that one, Profs K and W). No wonder we’re reading about a rekindled bromance with Kim Jong Un. Criminy. I hope and pray we elect adults in November. America is really going to have its own Nuremberg Trials, isn’t it?