Senator Richard Blumenthal sent a warning to shipping companies carrying Russian diesel to US ports. He tells them to "turn around before it's too late." In particular, Blumenthal showed the letter he sent to the Greek EASTMED company, whose Maltese-flagged tanker left a Russian port on October 22 with 40,000 tons of diesel and according to the declared route should arrive at the port of New York and New Jersey on November 7. In a letter to the CEO of EASTMED, Athanasios Martinos, Blumenthal demands that the tanker be returned for retrieval and that no more Russian diesel be transferred. The argument is as follows: the 2022 law, signed by Biden, prohibits the import of Russian energy carriers, and License No. 135, issued by the Treasury Department after Trump's diesel deal with Putin, does not repeal this law. The president may have issued the license, but only Congress can make the operation legal, the senator writes. According to the letter, the Greek company must name all the program participants: seller, buyer, lessor, insurer, terminal operator. He also has to report if he has received instructions from the Treasury Department or other federal agencies. A Trump license will not exempt you from legal and moral responsibility. You are complicit in helping to circumvent sanctions. For profit, - writes Blumenthal in X. Banks, in particular Goldman Sachs, as well as fuel distributors and ports have received similar letters before. Now it's the turn of the shipowners. Presumably the idea is that for Greek companies, dependent on the US market and Western insurance, the risk of being sued and investigated by Congress [especially if the Democrats take the majority] may be more expensive than the profit of one dodgy flight.

Senator Richard Blumenthal sent a warning to shipping companies carrying Russian diesel to US ports. He tells them to "turn around before it's too late." In particular, Blumenthal showed the letter he sent to the Greek EASTMED company, whose Maltese-flagged tanker left a Russian port on October 22 with 40,000 tons of diesel and according to the declared route should arrive at the port of New York and New Jersey on November 7. In a letter to the CEO of EASTMED, Athanasios Martinos, Blumenthal demands that the tanker be returned for retrieval and that no more Russian diesel be transferred. The argument is as follows: the 2022 law, signed by Biden, prohibits the import of Russian energy carriers, and License No. 135, issued by the Treasury Department after Trump's diesel deal with Putin, does not repeal this law. The president may have issued the license, but only Congress can make the operation legal, the senator writes. According to the letter, the Greek company must name all the program participants: seller, buyer, lessor, insurer, terminal operator. He also has to report if he has received instructions from the Treasury Department or other federal agencies. A Trump license will not exempt you from legal and moral responsibility. You are complicit in helping to circumvent sanctions. For profit, - writes Blumenthal in X. Banks, in particular Goldman Sachs, as well as fuel distributors and ports have received similar letters before. Now it's the turn of the shipowners. Presumably the idea is that for Greek companies, dependent on the US market and Western insurance, the risk of being sued and investigated by Congress [especially if the Democrats take the majority] may be more expensive than the profit of one dodgy flight.