300,000 tons of Russian diesel are reportedly heading to US — but New Jersey governor warns buyers of legal risks

A fleet of Russian diesel tankers is steaming toward American ports. Kyiv is tracking eight ships carrying more than 300,000 tons of fuel, likely bound for the US. Seven of them already name US ports as their destination, Ukrainian government sources told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

The cargo is the first wave of Trump’s deal to pump Russian diesel back into the US market. At the same time, shipments test whether a president can reopen a tap Congress sealed in 2022, with New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill threatening to turn the ships away, bipartisan senators calling the imports illegal.

Eight ships, four under sanctions

The tankers loaded mostly at the Baltic port of Primorsk in October and are due in the US between 7 and 18 November, the sources said.

Four of them, the Leruo, Primorye, Manta, and Feliks, are already under EU, UK, and Ukrainian sanctions. The eighth, the Greek-flagged Athina M., appears to be making the same run.

President Donald Trump has said he agreed with Russian leader Vladimir Putin on a three-month supply of millions of tons of Russian diesel for the US and world markets.

US groups track 13, and one turns back

Two US advocacy groups, the American Coalition for Ukraine and Razom for Ukraine, say they are tracking 13 vessels that could deliver Russian diesel to American ports this week. They flagged two as the likeliest carriers.

The Taurus idled near the Port of Wilmington, North Carolina, on 1 November, then turned back out to sea the next day with no sign it had unloaded.

The Agioi Fanendes, carrying an estimated 35,700 to 40,000 tons of ultra-low-sulfur Russian diesel, is crossing the Atlantic westward with an expected arrival on 7 November, though the groups say they have found no US buyer or terminal for it.

A governor and a 2022 law

Meanwhile, New Jersey Governor Sherrill has warned port and terminal operators on 2 November that taking in Russian diesel could break federal law and expose them to civil and criminal penalties, saying neither Trump nor Treasury officials have the authority to override Congress’s April 2022 ban on Russian energy imports.

At the center of the fight is a clash between that 2022 law and the Treasury’s General License 135, issued on 9 October, which permits Russian-origin diesel transactions, including imports, until 7 April 2027. The 2022 Act allows the ban to be lifted only if the president certifies that Russia has agreed to withdraw its troops and halt the fighting, with a 90-day window for Congress to block the move.

A bipartisan group of senators, among them Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Thom Tillis, and John Curtis, says the imports violate the law, and Tillis said Trump was “possibly” breaching the ban. The White House defends the deal as a way to boost supply and lower fuel prices for Americans.

“Absurd in every sense”

Critics say the economics do not hold up. The diesel deal is absurd in every sense of the word, said Yevhen Honcharov, policy director at the American Coalition for Ukraine, noting that the US is itself a diesel exporter and that the imports would not cut prices for American consumers while funneling revenue to Moscow.

John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine now at the Atlantic Council, expects the fuel to arrive unless a new obstacle appears, but warned that buyers could face lawsuits under the 2022 law even with the administration’s blessing.

This is a serious political mistake, because the real interests of the US lie in defeating Russian aggression in Ukraine. Trump's diesel deal, in his view, makes it easier for Putin to continue that aggression, he said, adding that the episode feeds doubts in Kyiv and European capitals about Washington’s reliability.