Trump wants to push America's diesel crisis onto the world

Donald Trump supports banning American diesel exports, after the national average price of diesel in the United States rose above a record $6.53 a gallon. According to the president, the United States should not sell fuel abroad but should keep it on its own market to increase supply and drive down prices. No decision has been made yet, however: Trump has so far only indicated that he supports the ban.

It is not hard to spot the November midterm elections behind the proposal. High diesel prices are hitting American farmers, truckers, construction companies and mining firms particularly hard, and Republicans are anxiously doing the math in exactly those states where these sectors are dominant. Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa has called for a temporary embargo, while Representative Tim Burchett has introduced a bill that would ban diesel exports until January 2027. The turnaround is all the more striking because Trump administration energy officials had previously opposed this very measure. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently said that an export ban would likely not permanently lower prices, but could trigger retaliatory measures from America's trading partners. The oil industry has also warned that losing the export market could lead refiners to scale back production, which could ultimately reduce American supply as well.

In June, the United States exported more than 1.4 million barrels of distillate petroleum products per day, a significant portion of it in the form of diesel. If Washington withdraws this quantity from the world market, it could cause further price increases and supply problems, especially in Europe and Latin America. Trump's plan therefore essentially means trying to save American consumers, at the expense of the rest of the world, from the energy crisis to which his own war with Iran significantly contributed. The American diesel price has risen by about 76 percent in a year. Behind the price surge are the war in the Middle East, disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, the decline in Russian refining capacity, and extremely low American stockpiles. Yet Trump continues to attack mainly the one factor among these that he does not control: Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries. He is not ending his own war, he does not acknowledge American strategic mistakes, and so he would rather shut off the diesel tap to Europe. And the cost of avoiding a Republican election defeat, in keeping with the Trumpian business model, should be paid by someone else.

Ugar