President Trump has struck a deal! Yay. And it's the "best deal ever". Again. If Americans are not thoroughly over this stuff by now, then I despair of them.
This time he has stuck a "deal" with Russia to import large quantities of embargoed Russian diesel, despite his signing into law just last month new sanctions on Russian oil and gas. Quite where President Putin is going to find all this diesel to export to the US is another mystery: Russia is already suffering from severe fuel shortages internally after an extended barrage of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil depots and processing facilities.
Details of the "deal" are predictably sparse. It was after all a more or less random suggestion during a phone call on a completely unrelated subject. Trump doesn't involve himself in the tedious details of making his "deals" somehow work.
Reactions from both the right and the left of the political divide have been almost universally condemnatory, particularly as the sanctions bill was passed so recently and with such fanfare. Analysts say that the amounts involved are not likely to have a significant effect on diesel prices, so Trump may not even get the cost-of-living boost he so desperately needs before the US mid-terms
I put the word "deal" in quotes throughout because these are not really deals at all, just Trump expressing his aspirations and flexing his (or rather America's) muscles. How many times has he announced a deal with Iran, or Ukraine, or Canada for that matter, only to have it changed/scrapped/reversed.
I truly believe that he just likes hearing himself say "I made a deal"; the content and the wisdom of the agreement is entirely secondary or even moot. This is not the Art of the Deal, it's the Myth of the Deal.
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