Mr President, Mr Secretary,
I write to acknowledge receipt of an economic development of some interest.
Hitherto, I had understood that principles were matters of immovable conviction. Your Treasury Department, however, appears to have determined that they may be temporarily discounted whenever the price of fuel becomes inconvenient to the motorist. It is, I confess, precisely the sort of administrative flexibility one has learned to expect from a breakaway colony.
On 9 October, the Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License No. 135, authorising certain transactions involving Russian-origin diesel. Four days later, Brent crude settled at the disagreeable price of $105.69 per barrel.
For several years, the civilised world was instructed that sanctions were a moral imperative requiring universal sacrifice. It now appears that conscience carries an expiry date, signed in triplicate by the Department of the Treasury.
I am not offended by the compromise. Compromise is the ordinary currency of government.
What I find intolerable is that the transaction was conducted without me.
If international convictions were to be liquidated for maritime distillates, the negotiations ought properly to have been directed from my study. I assure you, I would have extracted a far more commanding price for our integrity than the mere promise of relief at the fuel pumps.
Concerning the Price of Fuel
Let me be plain. I do not consider the price of fuel a trivial matter.
A nation cannot function upon high-minded speeches alone. Tractors must operate. Freight must move. Domestic radiators must remain warm without requiring the householder to negotiate a private loan.
These are elementary requirements of administration. The inability of successive Western governments to secure reliable energy without precipitating an international emergency has long been a source of irritation to me.
Your error was not in seeking to secure the diesel. Your error lay in doing so clumsily, through the back door of a regulatory agency, whilst continuing to lecture the rest of mankind upon moral fortitude.
You have managed to provoke a joint protest from twelve senators of both political parties—a modest but remarkable achievement in the present American climate—while demonstrating to every foreign capital that American foreign policy may be purchased for the mere prospect of cheaper fuel.
Instructions for the Executive
The market has spoken, Mr President, and it has priced your convictions at $105.69.
When I assume responsibility for international affairs, energy policy will not be managed through emergency waivers issued in panic from Washington basements.
Until that transfer of authority takes place, I suggest you refrain from further public declarations regarding the sanctity of rules.
An acknowledgement of receipt will suffice.
Yours,
