{"id":640523,"date":"2026-09-30T11:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-30T11:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/640523\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T11:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T11:40:08","slug":"trump-weighs-diesel-export-ban-as-us-fuel-crisis-deepens-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/640523\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump weighs diesel export ban as US fuel crisis deepens \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US<\/a> president Donald Trump <\/a>has held crisis talks with advisers over whether to impose a diesel export ban or take other steps to contain a fuel crisis that threatens to derail his Republican Party\u2019s<\/a> midterm election campaign. <\/p>\n

Aides have presented the president with options including curbs on international diesel sales, people familiar with the discussions said, and administration officials have briefed foreign allies in Europe and elsewhere about possible disruption to their supplies. <\/p>\n

Latest figures indicate that about one-in-nine litres of diesel used in Ireland is imported directly from the US, though European suppliers such as the Netherlands, Belgium and UK remain more important sources overall.<\/p>\n

A White House official said Trump was \u201cevaluating all the options on the table\u201d to lower domestic fuel prices and that no decision had been taken on whether to suspend exports. <\/p>\n

But the president is at the centre of a lobbying fight between Republican allies worried about the political impact of the diesel price surge \u2014 which has hammered farmers and other parts of US industry \u2014 and oil bosses desperate to preserve lucrative exports. <\/p>\n

Republicans from agricultural heartlands, led by Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, have pushed for the block, fearing a midterms backlash unless fuel prices can be lowered. <\/p>\n

Voters have soured on Trump\u2019s handling of the economy, his Iran war and inflation, according to polls. \u201cThe political effects are that the Republicans could lose the majority,\u201d Tennessee Congress member Tim Burchett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to own it, whether we deserve to or not. We\u2019re the ones in power \u2014 it\u2019s hard to escape that,\u201d added Burchett, who has proposed legislation to ban diesel exports. <\/p>\n

One leading industry figure familiar with the White House debate said an export ban was \u201cabsolutely getting pretty close to movement\u201d last week after Grassley and top Republicans from farming states urged the administration to \u201cstop the bleeding\u201d. <\/p>\n

White House officials have also laid the groundwork for a ban with allies in Europe, where prices have hit new records, prompting street protests. <\/p>\n

The Trump administration cranked up pressure on European allies to release diesel stocks from their reserves. US officials have also discussed asking China to increase diesel production from its refineries. <\/p>\n

The possibility of a ban has prompted a flurry of frantic calls to the White House from oil executives in recent days. Members of Trump\u2019s cabinet \u2014 including Wright, interior secretary Doug Burgum and Bessent \u2014 have also weighed in against a diesel ban. <\/p>\n

ExxonMobil\u2019s chief executive Darren Woods met Wright in the White House on Tuesday. People familiar with the debate said the Big Oil lobbying effort had convinced the president that an export ban could backfire by pushing up prices in parts of the US that import fuel from the international market. But the issue remains live. <\/p>\n

Trump said at the weekend he was \u201cvery seriously considering\u201d a ban. People familiar with the debate said he could make a sudden decision in favour. \u201cThe debate goes on. We don\u2019t have a firm sense of what he\u2019s going to do,\u201d said one person familiar with the arguments within the administration. \u201cWhite House staff are thoroughly opposed to it. But this is all about Trump, and does Trump want to do something big … So [a ban is] still in play.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other ideas floated in White House discussions include further waivers of the Jones Act, to allow easier shipping between US ports, tax relief either at state or federal level and relaxing rules on cheaper dyed diesel reserved for off-road vehicles such as tractors. <\/p>\n

The urgency comes almost two years after the president was re-elected on a vow to slash fuel prices for Americans and unleash an era of \u201cAmerican energy dominance\u201d with booming exports. <\/p>\n

But his Iran war, now in its seventh month, has sparked a historic fuel crisis, with diesel \u2014 critical in US industry and agriculture \u2014 hitting $6.53 a gallon last week, more than 70 per cent above its prewar price. <\/p>\n

Bill Farren-Price at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies said: \u201cCreating an energy price shock through a Middle Eastern war of choice is not good for US consumers, the world economy or the longer-term growth of oil and gas markets.\u201d <\/p>\n

The debate in the White House comes after Trump rejected an Iranian proposal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which could have allowed more oil into the international market. <\/p>\n

Shipments of oil from the Gulf have increased in recent weeks but remain well below their prewar level, when about 20 per cent of global oil supplies passed through the strait.<\/p>\n

– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump has held crisis talks with advisers over whether to impose a diesel export ban…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,969,61,60,16621,90],"class_list":["post-640523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-donald-trump","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-republican-party","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}