Trump Picked a Side in the Diesel Fight and the Oil Lobby Is Pushing Back

Farmers and truckers are paying a record six dollars and fifty-three cents for every gallon of diesel.

Iowa's Chuck Grassley pressed the president to stop shipping American diesel overseas while prices climb.

Trump just picked a side, and the fight inside Washington is only getting started.

Trump Made His Position Clear at the United Nations

Trump was in New York for the UN General Assembly when reporters asked him about diesel.

He did not dodge.

"I've said let's not send out the diesel," Trump said. "We make a lot of diesel."

"I've called for it. I've called for it within my people," he added.

Asked how soon a decision would come, Trump kept it short: "Fast, one way or the other."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the administration is studying "whether it's feasible in terms of the overall refining capacity, and whether a full or a partial ban would work."

The numbers explain why the idea has so much pull.

American refineries turn out about 5.3 million barrels of distillate fuel a day, while the country uses about 3.6 million.

The United States ships roughly 1.6 million barrels of diesel overseas every day.

In May, exports hit nearly 50 million barrels – the most for any month since records began in 2009.

A year earlier, diesel cost $3.69 a gallon.

Farm State Republicans Want the Export Door Shut

Grassley did not bother with subtlety.

"I encourage President Trump to put a temporary embargo on diesel exports through executive actions," the Iowa senator said.

Alaska's Dan Sullivan, whose state is paying $6.66 a gallon, is on board.

"I'm calling for a temporary pause of American diesel exports so that we can rebuild our reserves ahead of winter," Sullivan said.

Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson and Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett have joined the push, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is open to it.

Trump would not need Congress to act.

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives the president the authority to restrict exports with a single signature.

Two Cabinet Secretaries and Big Oil Are Not Sold

The American Petroleum Institute came out swinging.

"The answer is more supply and more flexibility – not new restrictions that risk making a difficult situation worse," API President Mike Sommers said.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright made the same argument back in May.

"If you stop exporting diesel, we got to turn our refineries down," Wright said. "That would make no sense at all."

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said he was "not at all confident" a ban would actually lower the price.

Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, slammed the idea as "a misguided proposal that would cause more harm and increase, not decrease, costs for American families and businesses."

Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to George W. Bush, predicted "a short-term abrupt collapse in pump prices for diesel" in Gulf Coast states.

He also warned the relief could fade within weeks.

The Dallas Federal Reserve's Garret Golding laid out the catch – refineries that cannot export diesel slow down, and that means less gasoline and jet fuel too.

America Kept Its Crude Oil at Home for 40 Years After 1973

This is not a new idea.

After the 1973 Arab oil embargo, Congress banned most American crude oil exports in 1975.

That ban stood until Congress lifted it in December 2015.

For four decades, keeping American oil at home was simply the law of the land.

Why the Diesel Decision Cannot Wait for the First Snow

The fuel crisis is still spreading across the country, with gasoline holding at $4.48 a gallon.

Heating oil is the same fuel, and across the Northeast it is closing in on $6 a gallon – about 70 percent higher than in 2025.

Harvest season runs on diesel, and every combine in Iowa is burning it.

The usual backstop is not there.

Releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve have dwindled as the salt caverns holding it approach emergency levels.

The reserve sits at about 285 million barrels, just above the 252.4 million barrel legal floor that only a presidential emergency declaration can breach.

Engineers have warned that some of the older caverns are nearing unsafe drawdown levels.

With missiles and drones hitting refineries around the world, America has less room to absorb the next shock than at any point in decades.

Trump's instinct is the farmer's instinct.

When the neighbors are hurting, you do not sell the feed out of your barn to the highest bidder overseas.

Families in farm country cannot pay their bills with a lecture about global distillate flows.

Trump has heard from the oil lobby and from the people buying the fuel.

He picked the people buying the fuel.

Sources:

• Kelly Livingston and David Jordan, "Trump says administration is weighing diesel export restrictions," Roll Call, September 22, 2026.
• Josephine Walker, "Trump backs diesel exports ban, marking a shift for administration," Axios, September 22, 2026.
• Callie Patteson and Maydeen Merino, "Daily on Energy: Pushback against the movement to ban diesel exports," Washington Examiner, September 21, 2026.
• Hugh Cameron, "Trump's diesel export plan dismissed by his own officials," Newsweek, September 23, 2026.
• Aimee Picchi, "Diesel prices just hit a new record. Would a U.S. export ban bring relief?," CBS News, September 22, 2026.