WASHINGTON — The House speaker stood before Donald Trump during his first term at the White House and pointed a finger declaring that with this president, “All roads lead to Putin.” The stark assessment years ago from Nancy Pelosi echoed anew after Trump’s surprise announcement last week that he struck a deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to import tons of Russian diesel to the U.S. as a way to ease sky-high prices at the pumps for Americans ahead of the midterm elections. Trump’s diesel deal with Putin has been criticized by both Republicans and Democrats as fueling Russia’s war against Ukraine, violating existing U.S. laws and drawing the U.S. closer to Russia. It joins a growing list of instances where the president has sided with Putin , often at the expense of Ukraine — and America’s own standing. “The harm to the Ukrainians is real,” said William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, in an interview Monday. “And the cost to us, the United States, is high.” It’s not at all clear the Trump-Putin deal
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