How do you lift Russian sanctions without lifting sanctions against Russia? You do it like this:

The White House on Friday announced a new round of sanctions against Venezuela that explicitly exempt the U.S. arm of the country’s state-owned oil company. That company, Citgo, donated six-figure sums to Trump’s inauguration and recently hired former Trump officials to lobby for that exemption.

While there are good reasons to be upset about Trump’s carve-out for Citgo based on the fact that the Venezuelan state-owned corporation is fronted by former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and campaign adviser Barry Bennett, there’s an even better reason that Trump’s move is a shockingly obvious instance of payback.

The exemption Citgo received from the Trump administration in this latest round of sanctions won’t just benefit PDVSA, it will also benefit a Russian company that has been fighting U.S. sanctions on a wholly separate front. Months before the Trump inauguration PDVSA mortgaged 49.9% of Citgo to state-owned Russian energy giant Rosneft as collateral for a $1.5 billion loan to the Venezuelan parent company. Rosneft paid another $1 billion this month for crude oil from the cash-strapped PDVSA, which is the Russian firm’s largest non-Russian supplier.

Trump took $500,000 for his inauguration from a company whose ownership is split between the Venezuelan government and the Russian government. And now, by carving out this exemption in US sanctions, Trump is providing protection for the investment of Vladimir Putin as well as giving a boost to Lewandowski all in one action. And he’s giving a foreign oil company a hand, just as American oil companies are facing a disaster.