Trump will love it: the Russian shadow fleet is proposed to pay off the US debt
10 April 2025 18:21
Republican Senator Joni Ernst and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal propose to create a fund to help enforce sanctions on the so-called “ghost” fleet of tankers that Russia and sometimes Iran use to transport oil and avoid sanctions. This was reported by Reuters, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
The relevant bipartisan law was already presented the day before. The fund is proposed to be established under the US Treasury with an initial capital of $150 million.
The bill also provides for the creation of a coordinating center for export control, which will be managed by the Minister of Homeland Security. This means that the center will actually be responsible for tracking shadow fleet vessels.
Why it is important
“Russia continues its malicious actions by operating a ‘ghost fleet’ to avoid US sanctions, enrich its own war machine, and even help Iranian oil smuggling,” Republican Senator Joni Ernst explains the rationale for the law.
According to him, the law will help improve intelligence sharing and provide law enforcement agencies with tools to prosecute “illegal” suppliers.
Why Trump might like it
According to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, the introduction of such a control mechanism will also bring real revenues.
The law stipulates that oil found on shadow fleet vessels will be sold, and the funds that exceed a certain level will be used to repay the US debt.
Although, as Reuters notes, the amount collected will be small compared to the US debt of $36 trillion.
Another argument in favor of the law, which may be appreciated by Trump, is that the new sanctions control mechanism will apply to ships that sometimes also transport crude oil from Iran, and the US President has previously expressed a desire to reduce this export to zero in order to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.
According to Reuters, it is unclear what will happen next with this bill in Congress, but measures against Russia and Iran are something that many lawmakers from both parties agree on.
Russian oil fleet resumes activity again
Despite the US sanctions, several blacklisted vessels have loaded oil for the first time in more than a year, boosting exports. This was reported by EP with reference to Bloomberg.
Over the past four weeks, as of March 9, the average daily export of Russian oil has increased by 300 thousand barrels – the largest increase since January 2023. The total volume of supplies reached 3.37 million barrels per day, the highest since November.
How many ships are in the Russian shadow fleet
Western governments have imposed restrictions on approximately 300 tankers in total. In January 2025, the United States added 155 tankers to the sanctions list, the largest attempt to weaken the shadow fleet. Initially, this limited the flow of Russian oil, but a change in the US political course and Donald Trump’s desire for a truce may ease the sanctions pressure.
Bloomberg also reported, citing sources, that the US presidential administration is discussing the abolition of the “oil ceiling,” which prohibits companies from Western countries from transporting and insuring oil purchased from Russia for more than $60 per barrel.
According to estimates by the Kyiv School of Economics, cited by Suspilne, the total number of tankers in the Russian shadow fleet is approximately 600 vessels. At least a third of them were purchased from Western companies.
