President Donald Trump lifted sanctions on Russian fuel, a decision that came just weeks before the midterm elections and drew a sharp rebuke from a former ally. Mike Pence, the former vice president, called it a “betrayal” and urged Trump to reverse course.
The backlash came fast. It came from inside the Republican family.
The Deal and the Timing
On Friday, Trump announced that he and Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed during a phone call that Putin would release millions of tons of diesel fuel into the global market. Politico described the move as lifting sanctions on Russian diesel and noted that it came weeks before the midterm elections, as fuel prices surged. Its listing said Trump suggested the United States may buy Russian diesel.
The political backdrop matters. Before the deal, Republicans were pressuring Trump to lower diesel prices before voters head to the polls. Sanctions relief for a major wartime adversary, in other words, arrived as a possible answer to a pump-price problem.
Pence: A Lifeline for Putin's War Machine
Pence didn't mince words. “President Trump's decision to lift sanctions on Russian fuel amid Putin's ongoing and brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine makes no sense and is a betrayal of the legacy and leadership of the late Senator Lindsey Graham,” he wrote in a post on X.
He went further. “Instead of implementing the tough sanctions Lindsey Graham fought to his last breath to enact, President Trump has announced the United States is lifting sanctions on Russian energy, fueling the Putin's war machine,” Pence wrote.
Pence said he “saw firsthand in Ukraine last month” that “Putin is losing this war.” His argument: Washington shouldn't rescue a struggling government. “America should not be throwing a lifeline to Putin's war machine,” he wrote. “Now is the time to stand strong against Russian aggression as we did during the first Trump administration.”
What Pence Wants Instead
Pence laid out a clear alternative. He called on Trump to “rescind this deal immediately and return to the strong policies of our four years in the White House.” That means, he said, imposing “harsh sanctions on any nation purchasing Russian energy” and working with allies “to ensure Ukraine has the military support it needs to repel and defeat this Russian invasion once and for all.”
He framed the stakes as bigger than one war. “Putin doesn't want peace. Putin wants Ukraine,” Pence wrote. “I have no doubt that if Putin overruns Ukraine, it will only be a matter of time until Russia's military crosses a border that our troops will have to deal with him.”
He also invoked America's role in the world. “America is the Leader of the Free World,” Pence wrote. “For our National Security, for the security of our Allies in Europe including Ukraine, President Trump should rescind this deal.”
Why This Matters: Sanctions are among the few tools democracies have to pressure an aggressor without sending troops, and they work only if applied consistently. Easing restrictions on Russian energy while Putin continues “brutal attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine,” as Pence put it, raises hard questions about whose interests the decision serves. Ukrainian civilians bear the immediate cost when money flows back to Moscow's war effort. European allies, who've heard for years that Western unity is the strategy, now face a signal of division.
There's a transparency question, too. A major foreign policy shift announced after a single phone call and timed against a midterm fuel-price squeeze invites scrutiny from Congress and voters alike. Lower pump prices matter to working families. But they shouldn't come without a public accounting of what's being traded away.