A top Republican senator has urged President Donald Trump to impose an embargo on diesel exports as the price of the fuel hit a record high on the morning of Sept. 21.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), head of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, called on the Trump administration to use the embargo to address the high fuel prices faced by farmers.
He wrote on X on Sept. 19: “Why doesn’t [President] Trump put an embargo on diesel exports like presidents in the ‘70s put embargoes on [agriculture] products [because] food prices were inflated. High diesel prices are killing farmers’ income.”
A day later, the GOP senator said that if the U.S. government “can embargo chips to China,” then “it can embargo diesel to help American farmers and truckers.
“We need our family farmers who feed&fuel the world [to be] on the strongest footing possible no matter what’s happening across the globe,” Grassley wrote.
Grassley’s remark comes as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota, said last week that an export ban on diesel would not lower prices at the pump in the United States.
“We would consider an export ban if we thought that actually might lower prices, but that’s not the case,” Burgum told reporters at a G20 meeting on energy in Houston.
Diesel plays a significant role in many industries because it is used in heavy trucks, farm equipment, military vehicles, public transportation, and construction equipment.
Burgum warned that bans on oil, gasoline, or diesel exports could lead to retaliatory actions from other countries, which could hurt consumers in states such as California that depend partially on energy imports.
“We stop exporting product, and then somebody says, ‘We’re not going to export to California,'” Burgum said.
Ahead of the midterm elections in November that will decide control of Congress, the Trump administration has been grappling with higher oil, gas, and diesel prices amid the war with Iran and alongside expanded fighting between Russia and Ukraine in recent days.
According to an American Automobile Association (AAA) update on the morning of Sept. 21, the price of a gallon of diesel reached $6.51 per gallon, which is a historic high recorded by the group.
The price rose roughly 1 cent from Sept. 20 to Sept. 21, its figures show.
The diesel price, however, has risen by more than 28 cents over the past week, and nearly $1 over the past month, according to AAA data.
As for regular gasoline, the price remained about the same on Sept. 20 and 21, hitting $4.47 per gallon on average.
The price has increased by more than 16 cents over the past week and about 37 cents over the past month.
Trump on the morning of Sept. 21 called on Ukraine and Russia to end fighting, and he said that Moscow has “lost control” of its diesel refining industry amid Ukrainian drone strikes in recent days.
Last week, Trump stated that Russia and Ukraine said they would stop their attacks on oil refineries.
The U.S. president is due to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York City amid the gathering of delegations for the U.N.’s General Assembly.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sept. 21.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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