1. United States
2. Ohio
3. Letter

Diesel is up about two and a half dollars from a year ago. Trump’s solution? Scapegoat Ukraine. While golfing in Ireland last week, Trump said that Zelensky has to stop knocking out diesel fuel refineries in Russia because “the world is hurting.” And he repeated that threat on a phone call with Zelensky yesterday ahead of their meeting at the UN tomorrow. That’s the message from one president golfing on his private course to another fighting a war for his country’s very existence. What a coward. But let’s take apart Trump’s blatant lie. Independent estimates say Ukraine’s refinery strikes have cut Russia’s refining by at least a fifth. Ukraine says it’s more like 40 percent. That’s one of its greatest strategic accomplishments during the war. And it shouldn’t have a widespread impact on the domestic or global oil market. The United States doesn’t buy Russian diesel. And we use sanctions to pressure other countries not to buy it either. The reason diesel is expensive is that Trump’s war with Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz back in February. That’s the chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil. And Trump knows it, which is why he keeps trying to tell us it’s open or about to open. And it’s why our goals for the war have seemingly shifted from stopping Iran’s nuclear program to just getting the strait open again. Ukraine is hitting the one thing Putin can’t replace: his fuel. And our president is asking them to stop for a midterm election that he’s bound to lose. That’s a favor to Moscow, paid for by the American public.