On Friday, September 4, 2026, the national average price of diesel reached $5.85 a gallon, an all-time high, according to AAA. The previous record, $5.82, was set in June 2022 in the first months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Diesel is up nearly 60 percent from a year earlier and about $2.09 a gallon, or 56 percent, since the United States and Israel began bombing Iran in late February and Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz.
Regular gasoline averaged $4.14 to $4.15 a gallon heading into Labor Day weekend, nearly a dollar higher than a year earlier and well above the previous Labor Day record of $3.82, set in 2012. AAA said travelers were “facing the highest gas prices ever for this time of year.” Crude traded at about $97 a barrel on Thursday and crossed $100 the following week as the fighting in the strait resumed. The all-time record for regular gas, $5.02 in June 2022, still stands.
Diesel matters beyond the truck stop. It is the fuel for the tractor-trailers, freight rail and delivery fleets that move food and goods across the country, and the added cost is passed on at the grocery store and in package delivery. The Washington Post reported the record puts “additional cost pressure on manufacturers and retailers.”
The Associated Press noted that the Iran war is not the only factor: U.S. refineries were running at 98 percent of capacity through an unusually hot Texas summer, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries had cut diesel supply, and Chinese refinery output was declining. But the war is the dominant one. Tom Seng, an energy finance professor at Texas Christian University: “Everything points to the Iran War and the Strait of Hormuz.”
The administration's response was to minimize. At a White House briefing on Thursday, September 3, Vice President JD Vance said of the Iran conflict, “I wouldn't call it a war,” describing the latest exchanges of fire as a “flare-up.” Asked when the fighting would end, he said, “You would have to ask the Iranians.” On prices: “Gas, frankly, could have been much, much higher were it not for our efforts. But I'm not going to make a promise about when it's going to return to $3.” Energy Secretary Chris Wright: “Yes, they're higher today, but we're doing everything we can to push them down.”
Trump campaigned on cheap energy and spent years attacking Biden over $3 gas. In April he told Fox News that prices “could be the same or maybe a little bit higher” by the midterms (see Trump Admits Gas Prices Won't Drop Before the Midterms, Then Borrows the Biden Price Gouging Playbook He Spent Years Mocking), and in May he said Americans' financial pain motivated his Iran decisions “not even a little bit.” Economist Dean Baker's reaction to the diesel record was three words: “Trump did it!” For the earlier milestones, see Gas Prices Cross $4 for the First Time Since 2022 as the Iran War Threatens to Eat Up Trump's Bigger Tax Refunds and Oil Surges Past $100/Barrel and Gas Prices Hit a Trump-Era Record as He Dismisses Soaring Costs as 'a Little Glitch'.
The records kept coming. Diesel crossed $6 a gallon for the first time on Friday, September 11, and reached a new high of $6.23 on Monday, September 14, according to AAA, while regular gas rose to $4.31, up more than 45 percent since the war began. That day Brent crude topped $109 a barrel before closing at $105.68. NBC News tied the jump to Saudi Arabia's shutdown of a critical pipeline “as a precautionary measure,” the postponement of talks on the future of the Strait of Hormuz, and a trickle of traffic through the strait, where MarineTraffic counted just 14 vessels on Sunday. NBC also reported that new escalations between Ukraine and Russia had pushed diesel prices 30 percent higher since late June.
Trump pointed there. “The World's Diesel price rise is mostly caused by the Russia/Ukraine War, not Iran,” he posted, and wrote that “Oil is flowing through the Hormuz Strait.” The day before, he said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.” On September 14 he announced, “Ukraine has agreed not to hit Russian Energy targets. Russia has agreed to do, likewise!” Zelenskyy answered that Ukraine would stop only if Russia genuinely did: “we are ready to ensure a corresponding halt to our strikes.”
The effects spread. The 10-year Treasury yield briefly topped 5 percent, its highest level since October 2023, and NBC said fears that fuel prices will feed inflation were helping drive yields up. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association projected that households heating with oil will pay 31.3 percent more this winter, about $2,300 for the season. Reuters reported that rail fuel surcharges on grain shipments hit record highs during harvest, up 153 percent from a year earlier. Former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore described the mood inside the White House as “frustration they can't get this resolved,” and Sen. Chuck Grassley urged Trump to embargo diesel exports: “$6 diesel is a bigger issue in Iowa than $5,000.” A White House spokeswoman, Taylor Rogers, said the president “remains committed to unleashing American energy dominance.”
On September 15, AAA's national diesel average reached $6.26 a gallon. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters, “If that would take pressure off of prices, you know, I'm open to exploring it,” referring to a ban on diesel exports. The administration has not endorsed a ban; Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said the day before, “We would consider an export ban if we thought that actually might lower prices, but that's not the case.” The same day, the Congressional Budget Office reported that higher energy prices, after supply disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea, are largely driving the war's effect on inflation (see Congressional Budget Office Estimates the Iran War Cost the Pentagon $38.1 Billion Through August and Used Up to Two-Thirds of U.S. Missile Interceptors).
Update (September 21, 2026): AAA's national diesel average reached $6.5107 on September 21, the highest it has ever recorded, up from $6.23 a week earlier and $3.70 a year earlier. Regular gasoline stood at $4.4786, against $3.18 a year ago. The Energy Information Administration's separate weekly series, reported by Reuters on September 18, showed diesel had “hit a new record this week, $6.29 per gallon, up 68% from $3.74 a year ago.” Reuters attributes the diesel squeeze to two things, the war with Iran and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, and reported that farmers heading into harvest and trucking firms are absorbing the cost.
At his September 16 rally in Gastonia, North Carolina, Trump addressed it, in The Hill's transcription: “It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that. It's a little more. Frankly, even if it was a lot more.” He said in the same breath that prices were going to come tumbling down “like a rocket ship in reverse.” The Associated Press took the quote to voters. Quinten Martinez, an Amazon driver in Texas, said, “I don't feel like it's a good trade-off.” Dan Lloyd, a Trump voter in Arizona, said, “He hurt himself stepping into this.”
Pressed by Fox News's Peter Doocy on when the drop would come, economic adviser Kevin Hassett said, “President Trump will decide when enough is enough,” and argued prices would be far higher without Navy escorts in the strait. He defended the war itself by saying Iran had told the United States it was two weeks from a nuclear weapon and that “The president had to act.” That account of the war's origin is the administration's assertion and has not been independently established.
Update (September 22, 2026): the push for a diesel export ban split Trump's party and his administration. Sen. Chuck Grassley posted, “High diesel prices ARE KILLING FARMERS INCOME,” and Rep. Ashley Hinson, in a close Iowa race, said, “Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran.” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said, “The export ban, honestly, makes probably more sense to me” than suspending the gas tax, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called for “a 90-day ban on U.S. diesel exports.” Oil-state Republicans objected; Sen. John Cornyn called it “a gimmick,” and Energy Secretary Chris Wright had warned, “If you start putting barriers on flows, pretty quickly you will reduce the production.” The administration's own messages diverged. A White House official said it is “not considering an export ban or export restrictions at this time,” while Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Trump called her about diesel on September 21, that she expects an announcement “very soon on some potential actions,” and that “Every tool in the tool kit is being evaluated right now.” Senate Republican Whip John Barrasso said Trump “is considering a number of different things that he can do.”
Correction (September 22, 2026): this entry cited an ABC News copy of the Associated Press story on record Labor Day fuel prices; that URL now returns a 404. It has been replaced with OPB's copy of the same AP story.
Update (September 23, 2026): a day after a White House official said the administration was “not considering an export ban or export restrictions at this time,” Trump said he has been pushing for one. Sitting beside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the United Nations on September 22, he said, “I've said let's not send out the diesel. We make a lot of diesel … I've called for it. I've called for it within my people.” He allowed that it might raise gasoline prices: “It could have a little bit of an effect on regular automobile gasoline because when you do that, you know it's a sort of a flow. It's a balance.” He said a decision would come “fast, one way or the other.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, next to him, said, “We're examining whether it's feasible in terms of the overall refining capacity and whether a full or partial ban would work.” Nothing has been ordered. Rep. Tim Burchett has introduced a bill to ban the exports outright.
The industry and the analysts are close to unanimous that it would backfire. American Petroleum Institute chief executive Mike Sommers said, “Restricting U.S. energy exports would only compound the problem—exacerbating refining challenges and ultimately hurting consumers.” The institute's fuller statement notes that Gulf Coast refineries make more diesel than the region uses, “while geography and infrastructure constraints prevent that surplus from simply being redirected to every US market that needs it,” which is why a ban would cut prices in Texas and Louisiana while doing little for the coasts. The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers added the mechanism: refiners would cut runs, and “producing less diesel also means producing less gasoline.” Garrett Golding of the Dallas Fed made the same point.
Bob McNally, who ran energy policy in the George W. Bush White House, was blunter: “This is taking a sledgehammer to the problem. It would be an authentic policy error, or what I call an 'APE.' In fact, this would be the king of the APEs,” and “If he bans exports, the coasts are screwed.” The economist Philip Verleger said a ban “could raise world prices by as much as 100%,” and reached for the precedent Chuck Grassley had reached for approvingly: “A ban on US diesel exports, even if temporary, would have the same long-term effect as President (Richard) Nixon's soybean embargo: the world would no longer view the United States as a dependable source.” American farmers spent a generation losing that market to Brazil.
The numbers behind the argument: diesel exports hit a record 1.6 million barrels a day in August, up from about a million before the war; on-road diesel inventories are about 13 percent below the five-year seasonal average with refiners running near 97 percent of capacity; and diesel is trading at roughly $207 a barrel in crude-equivalent terms, more than $100 above crude itself. The national average on September 22 was $6.53 a gallon by the Guardian's and CNBC's reading of AAA, $8.44 in California. Russia, whose refineries Ukraine has been hitting, has banned its own diesel exports.
Later on September 23: Politico reported that the administration “is preparing a plan to ban exports of diesel for 90 days, despite splits inside the administration and with the oil industry, in a bid to bring down energy prices weighing on Republicans leading into the midterms,” citing five people familiar with the discussions. According to that account Trump “is inclined to announce a ban by the end of the week” and to treat the consequences as “a December problem.” One person described the internal argument this way: the faction worried about “the absolutely, sky-is-falling, we-have-to-do-something concern about prices at the pump” has been “swept aside by the political camp, which says, 'dammit, something has to happen.'”
The White House denied it twice within the hour. “This is another fake news story from Politico,” a White House official said. A spokesperson told The Independent, “This is not true. Politico published this Fake News even though the Energy Secretary publicly addressed this earlier today.” Reuters, reporting the denial, added that it “could not immediately verify the report,” and quoted Energy Secretary Chris Wright saying nobody is considering a flat ban: “What's being discussed is what's the most efficient way to get more diesel into the United States of America, and continue maximum flows of gasoline and jet fuel.” So the state of the record is one outlet's anonymous sourcing against an on-the-record denial. Nothing has been signed, no legal authority has been identified by anyone, and Politico itself says the “legal process of which is still being worked out.”
What is not in dispute is that the president's own energy secretary spent the day arguing against the idea in public. At a Climate Week panel Wright said, “The blunt tool of banning diesel exports definitely doesn't work because the U.S. exports a lot of diesel,” explaining that the refineries making diesel also make gasoline and jet fuel, so forcing diesel to pile up means cutting refinery runs and pushing those prices up. At a separate event he said, “This is more likely to be done entirely voluntary. We will not cease exports of U.S. diesel, but may there be some tweak in where diesel flows out of U.S. refineries? Yeah.” Politico reported that Wright, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum “have protested the idea of a total ban,” and that Wright called energy chief executives on Tuesday night to tell them a 90-day ban was likely, prompting a round of calls back to the White House. Of Bessent, who had said publicly that feasibility was being examined, one person said: “Bessent is a good soldier. He will voice opinions and then march forward.”
The markets did not wait for the denial. European diesel's premium to Brent crude jumped above $95 a barrel, a record in Bloomberg's data going back to 2011. Barclays had already told clients a ban would be “detrimental to the US refining complex and unlikely to provide the intended price relief.” Capital Economics said it “would exacerbate the existing severe strains in the global diesel market” and “would ultimately be self-defeating.” Goldman Sachs made the gasoline point on television: because the fuels are produced together, cutting diesel output “would likely reduce the availability of gasoline.” S&P Global estimates crude runs might have to fall by nearly 2 million barrels a day to clear the resulting surplus, and Bloomberg Intelligence puts Gulf Coast storage at about three weeks of net exports before it fills.
The politics are the reason this is moving. Politico reports that the decisive moment came when Sen. Chuck Grassley backed a ban last weekend, which “started a stampede of farm-country Republicans.” Sen. Dan Sullivan said diesel “is just too damn high” and called for a moratorium until the war ends. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board went the other way, attacking “the party's panicky rush to ban diesel exports” and warning that Republicans “could lose as many as eight Senate seats.” The national diesel average stood at $6.52, up 91 cents in a month and $2.83 in a year.
Update (September 24, 2026): the country's largest business groups wrote to Trump jointly to tell him not to do it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute and dozens of others sent the letter on September 23, warning that an export ban would “lead to less fuel production, tighter supplies and rising costs for American families, farmers and truckers.” Its opening line addresses the political argument directly: “You have been asked by some to ban or limit the export of diesel to help lower prices, when in fact the opposite would occur.”
Energy Secretary Chris Wright went further than he had the day before, telling the New York Times that “nobody wants a full blanket ban or zero exports of diesel. That's not being discussed. What's being discussed is what's the most efficient way to get more diesel into the United States of America and continue maximum flows of gasoline and jet fuel.” CNBC reports that the Politico story drove down diesel futures and the shares of U.S. refiners, and that Trump's remarks on Tuesday “took the oil industry and business groups by surprise.” The national average on September 24 was $6.51 a gallon, $2.82 above the same point last year. Nothing has been ordered.
Update (September 25, 2026): Louisiana declared a state of emergency over the price. Gov. Jeff Landry signed an executive order on September 22, effective September 23, letting farmers and timber harvesters burn untaxed, dyed off-road diesel in their farm and forestry trucks without the usual state penalty of $10 a gallon or $1,000, whichever is greater, through October 22. According to the order, as WAFB reported it, Louisiana's diesel average reached an all-time high of $6.03 a gallon, more than 80% above a year earlier and more than double the $2.85 the LSU AgCenter used to build its 2026 crop budgets. The order attributes the spike to a national diesel shortage, citing federal data showing inventories well below the five-year average while exports remain near record highs, and directs the state to ask the IRS for matching relief. Landry: “We're not going to sit on the sidelines while Louisiana farmers are paying record prices to harvest the crops that feed our families and support our economy.”
Update (October 1, 2026): The administration is trying other levers while the export ban idea hangs over the market. Politico reported on September 29 that Trump “appears set on banning diesel exports” while his Cabinet, oil executives and some Republican lawmakers press alternatives, including asking European governments to release diesel from their own strategic reserves; that idea comes from two people familiar with the discussions who were granted anonymity. “The motivation is to stop a ban,” one oil industry executive told Politico. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said, “it is a fact that the Europeans have a lot of diesel reserves.” A spokesperson for Germany's economy ministry said releases “will only occur in the event of potential shortages” and are “not intended to stabilize prices.” AAA put the national diesel average at $6.44 on September 29, $2.75 above a year earlier.
The same day the Energy Department offered an exchange of up to 40 million barrels of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, part of the 172-million-barrel release Trump announced with the International Energy Agency. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said, “While the United States and Japan are delivering on their commitments, several European member countries have released only a fraction of the crude oil and petroleum products they pledged.” Oil & Gas Journal reported that the reserve held 283.8 million barrels as of the week ending September 25, its lowest level in more than four decades, and that if companies take the full offer the physical inventory would temporarily fall to about 244 million barrels. It noted there is no guarantee they will: when the department offered the same 40 million barrels in June, one company borrowed about 500,000.
Update (October 2, 2026): The administration took its demand to Europe in public. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on October 1 that “Our European partners should accelerate delivery on their existing commitments and make additional supplies immediately available to address ongoing disruptions,” and that “American farmers, truckers, and businesses should not be left carrying the burden of a global diesel shortage.” Trump told reporters “we may” ask Europe to release reserves; a day earlier he said he is still “thinking about” an export ban but acknowledged it could have a “negative impact” on gasoline, CNBC reported. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had predicted, “You will hear announcements from our friends in Europe about new diesel supplies that'll come to the market that'll meaningfully push diesel prices down”; by Thursday evening none had come, NBC reported. Reuters, citing sources, reported that the administration told France and Germany to draw down their emergency diesel or face a possible U.S. export ban, and a source in a European capital said the U.S. asked the EU to release 120 million barrels over six months; that rests on unnamed sources. The European Commission said it is “in very close contact with our member states on this ongoing issue.” The U.S. supplied about half of the EU's diesel imports in August, according to the IEA. AAA put the average at $6.38 on October 1, up 70% since the war began.
Trump has also blamed Ukraine. “Diesel is really hurt much more, not by the Middle East, but by what's going on in Russia, because those diesel refineries are being knocked out at a pretty alarming rate,” he said on September 30. Energy analysts point to the Iran war and wider disruption of oil markets as the leading drivers, the Guardian reported, while Ukraine's refinery strikes add to the squeeze.
Related entries: The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve Is Being Drained to Its Lowest Level Since 1983 to Blunt the Oil Shock From Trump's Iran War.
Update (October 6, 2026): At a rally in Grand Island, Nebraska, on October 5, Trump signed an executive order on stage after telling the crowd it would “allow anyone to purchase tax-free, red-dye diesel for any reason,” then told the state's Republican senator and governor, “Pete and Jim, this should absolutely ensure your election, I guarantee you that.” The order does less than he described. It directs the Treasury Secretary to decide within five days “whether relief is authorized under 26 U.S.C. 7508A,” and if so to “defer payment” of the federal diesel tax incurred from October 5 through December 31, “to the extent authorized by law,” and tells the IRS not to impose penalties for using dyed diesel on the highway in that period. Forgiving the deferred tax would require further steps, “including legislation.” “The catch is the tax obligations don't go away completely, they are just deferred until next year,” CNN reported. GasBuddy's Patrick De Haan said “it's not truly tax-free” and that “A clean federal diesel tax suspension would need Congress,” noting that most states still bar dyed diesel on the road. The White House fact sheet attributed the diesel shortage to “the Russia-Ukraine war and a lack of refining capacity,” and did not mention the Iran war.
Update (October 7, 2026): Asked on October 6 whether the federal gas tax should be suspended, Trump said, “We're thinking about that.” A suspension would require an act of Congress, the Guardian noted, and both chambers are out until after the election, the New York Post reported. The tax adds 18.4 cents a gallon to gasoline and 24.4 cents to diesel; a pause would likely lower prices by 10 to 16 cents a gallon, according to Bipartisan Policy Center research cited by Bloomberg.
Update (October 27, 2026): At a rally in Perry, Georgia, on October 24, Trump said that while oil prices are “temporarily high,” the “United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars,” and that “our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars because of what's happened in the Middle East.” His staff, he said, had told him, “Please don't mention that, sir,” because “people are paying a little higher.” He said he could picture the “fake headlines” about him “talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump,” and went on: “I don't give a damn. I'm gonna say it. We're making a freaking fortune.”
In context he was speaking of the country, not himself: his next sentence was, “Our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time.” The quotations are from the Roll Call Factbase transcript. The national average for regular gas was $4.29 a gallon, according to AAA figures reported by Business Insider. Two days after the rally, Joint Economic Committee Democrats reported that Trump's own oil and gas holdings are worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million (see Congressional Democrats' Report Says Trump's Oil and Gas Holdings Grew to as Much as $81.6 Million During the Iran War).