Trump says US to get diesel from Russia in stunning bid to ease prices

BREAKING: Trump says he has struck a deal with Putin to supply Russian diesel to the US and global markets, a stunning reversal of years of US pressure on Moscow over its war in Ukraine as he moves to ease soaring fuel prices ahead of the midterms.

Russian diesel is coming to America, and Donald Trump is the one buying it.

The president says he struck the deal in a phone call with Vladimir Putin. A call that was supposedly about a suspected plague case in Russia, of all things. Instead, Trump came out announcing that Moscow will immediately ship more than 300,000 tons of diesel, another 500,000 in November, a million right after, and 3 million more within a short period. That's the Kremlin, back in the American fuel market.

Remember, this is the same Russia Washington spent years squeezing over Ukraine. Sanctions, price caps, pressure on anyone who touched Russian barrels. All of that, apparently, negotiable when pump prices are high and the midterms are close.

So the hardest fact tonight is this. Years of US pressure on Moscow just got traded for diesel, and Putin didn't have to give up a thing on Ukraine to get it.

This is Liu Yang, reporting for HIT.