{"id":881278,"date":"2026-10-13T21:42:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T21:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/881278\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T21:42:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T21:42:22","slug":"diesel-futures-signal-higher-prices-to-come-despite-trump-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/881278\/","title":{"rendered":"Diesel futures signal higher prices to come, despite Trump moves"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diesel futures traded sharply higher Tuesday, as doubts mounted about the likely impacts of the Trump administration\u2019s latest efforts to push prices down.<\/p>\n

U.S. diesel futures were up 5% by midday to their highest level in weeks. <\/p>\n

In Europe, diesel futures rose by about 3.8%, while gas futures spiked to levels not seen all year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A move higher in futures markets typically signals that prices will climb in the coming days.<\/p>\n

Already, the average nationwide price of diesel is up 70% since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. The cost of unleaded gas<\/a> has risen by more than 45% over that period.<\/p>\n

Crude oil prices, meanwhile, were mixed. Brent traded around $106 per barrel, while U.S. crude oil neared $95 per barrel. Both of those key energy benchmarks have risen around 70% since the start of the year.<\/p>\n

Gas and diesel prices are rising especially fast in parts of the country where President Donald Trump and Republicans can least afford to anger voters ahead of November\u2019s midterm elections. <\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely stunning price spikes in wholesale diesel today,\u201d Gulf Oil adviser Tom Kloza wrote Tuesday on X<\/a>. \u201cUS retail diesel price record of $6.53\/gal could be topped by the midterms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUp 18cts\/gal Gulf Coast and East Coast; but up 28cts\/gal in Southern California and 25-30cts\/gal in Great Plains and Great Lakes,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote on X<\/a> that \u201c$6\/gal diesel may be here to stay for now.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cTruckers and farmers not going to see any relief anytime soon,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

The broad spike higher in diesel futures came just days after Trump announced a controversial deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin to increase diesel supplies in the United States by buying previously sanctioned Russian reserves.<\/p>\n

When Trump announced the deal, he said it would result in millions of metric tons of additional diesel for the world. <\/p>\n

While that may sound like a lot, analysts have since crunched the numbers and determined that, at best, the diesel in question would amount to less than two weeks\u2019 worth<\/a> of U.S. demand.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s higher diesel futures are evidence of the market \u201cclearly not believing that Russian oil is on the way,\u201d Kloza said.<\/p>\n

The deal with Putin<\/a> also required that the Trump administration suspend long-standing sanctions on Russian energy purchases. <\/p>\n

The sanctions were put in place after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the decision to lift them until April has drawn widespread backlash both at home and abroad.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Trump has also applied pressure to European allies in an effort to get them to release more of their diesel reserves.<\/p>\n

The president\u2019s Oct. 2 announcement that Europe had bowed to the pressure and would release fuel temporarily cooled prices for a few days. But a lack of additional details about that release gradually erased any price relief. <\/p>\n

A subsequent statement from the International Energy Agency confirmed what traders had suspected: Europe would not be releasing any new diesel reserves, merely continuing to fulfill a pledge it made in March as part of a multinational effort to cap rising fuel prices.<\/p>\n

Trump also signed an executive order this month that sought to ease restrictions on an off-road formulation of diesel that is dyed red and not subject to federal gas taxes. <\/p>\n

But industry groups quickly warned truckers to avoid using<\/a> \u201cred dye\u201d diesel without more information about how the taxes would work. <\/p>\n

As of Tuesday, it was unclear whether Trump\u2019s red dye diesel order had any impact on domestic prices or supply.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Diesel futures traded sharply higher Tuesday, as doubts mounted about the likely impacts of the Trump administration\u2019s latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":881279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-881278","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}