President Trump said he is "very seriously" considering a ban on diesel exports. But such a move could drive U.S. gas prices sharply higher, analysts said.
Page F3From§Eachthe early evening edition — 28 September 2026
Grassley demands a diesel export ban to lower gas prices, warned it would raise them instead.
As it ran on the front
Start where last week's column left off, because the ledger is still running. Six days later the Congressional Budget Office closed the books on the Iran war at $38 billion and called that figure conservative. The war had already put a second cost on the same farmers, at the diesel pump instead of the feed store. That was the shape of the story then. It has not changed; it has grown a second front.
On September 20th, Chuck Grassley posted at night asking why President Trump would not do to diesel what presidents in the 1970s did to farm exports: embargo it, and let the shortage abroad bring the price down at home. Two days later, The Hill reported the idea had split his own conference. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was open to it. Oil-state Republicans were not. The day after that, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told reporters the blunt tool of banning diesel exports does not work, while Common Dreams reported the administration was drafting a 90-day ban anyway, the fuel cost already driven up by the war with Iran and the disruptions at the Strait of Hormuz.…
…(cont) That is the case Grassley built for a week: cut off the exports, and the fuel that stays home gets cheaper. On September 28th, CBS News reported the opposite finding — economists told the network a diesel export ban could send gas prices sharply higher, not lower. The same day, Grassley told ABC News the plainer version of what he actually wants: he does not want a Democratic governor picking his successor if he dies holding the seat.
Those are not two stories. They are one senator arranging two kinds of control at once — over who inherits his office, and over what the fuel market charges the country's trucks, tractors, and furnaces. His own conference will not back the second ask. The first one, he intends to decide alone, for as long as he is able to keep deciding anything at all.
“He wants to pick who fills that seat and he wants to pick what people pay at the pump, and in both cases the answer he's landed on is himself, not the market and not the voters of Iowa. His own energy secretary and half his caucus told him the diesel plan does the opposite of what he's selling, and he's still the one pushing it — that's not a policy, that's a man solving a succession problem by making sure a vacancy never happens.”
“Look, embargoes worked in the seventies, that's just history — well, that's also when the gas lines happened, so maybe skip that part. The Senator's only trying to bring fuel costs down for hardworking farmers, and if his own energy secretary calls it a blunt tool that doesn't work, that's a policy disagreement, not a — wait, did I just say Grassley's own team is against him? That doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Food bank wins 270,000 eggs from price-fixing settlement, loses them to the price of diesel. By Chip · the supper edition, 28 September 2026
- Congressman diagnoses the $121 billion Americans paid extra for energy since February as fatigue By Chip · the sunrise edition, 28 September 2026
- Priced by the budget office at $38 billion, a figure it calls conservative, the war is being paid at the pump by the farmer who voted for it and now says he can't stay in business. By Chip · the breakfast edition, 27 September 2026
The receipts
"I don't want a Democrat governor choosing my successor," Grassley said.
· Proposed diesel export ban splits GOP senators from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Proposed diesel export ban pits GOP senators against each other from the morgue, 22 Sep 2026
· Grassley urges Trump to place embargo on diesel exports amid high prices from the morgue, 20 Sep 2026
· Wright throws cold water on diesel export ban from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
· Critics Warn Trump-Backed Diesel Export Ban Could Further Drive US Economy Into the Ground from the morgue, 23 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.