Grassley Presses Trump for Diesel Export Ban as Prices Hit Records
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa urged President Donald Trump to block diesel exports to help farmers facing high fuel prices.
Grassley made the appeal Saturday in posts on X. He proposed a 1970s-style embargo on diesel and farm products and asked why Trump does not block diesel exports as 1970s presidents did. An embargo is a government ban on selling certain goods abroad. In one post he cited diesel at $6.57 in Iowa. In another he wrote that if the U.S. government can embargo chips to China, it can embargo diesel to help American farmers and truckers.
Diesel prices were at record levels when he spoke. The national average was $6.51 per gallon on Sunday, September 20, 2026, according to AAA, a record high Quartz. Iowa's average that Sunday was $6.31, nearly $3 more than a year earlier The Guardian. Iowa diesel prices hit a record high at the time of Grassley's call Newsweek.
Grassley said high diesel costs are "killing farmers' income." Diesel powers planting, harvest and grain transport, as well as the trucking that moves farm goods. The AAA figure for Iowa differs from the $6.57 Grassley cited in his September 19 post. That gap reflects the difference between a statewide average on a given day and a price seen at a single store.
The diesel proposal followed other White House action on food prices. The Trump administration allowed 300,000 metric tons of overseas beef trimmings to enter the U.S. at a reduced tariff rate in an effort to lower beef prices. A tariff is a tax on imported goods. The administration's tariff policies affecting farmers have drawn opposition from within Iowa's Republican delegation, including Rep. Ashley Hinson.
The broader context here is how governments use borders to manage costs at home. An export embargo tries to keep more supply inside the country to push domestic prices down. A tariff cut, as used for beef trimmings, tries to bring more supply in for the same reason. Grassley's comparison of diesel with chips to China puts two different export-control logics side by side: one organized around strategic denial, the other around domestic price relief.
Looking at what this means for policy, an embargo raises practical questions. Leaders would need to define covered products, duration, licensing rules, and treatment of existing contracts. It would test relations with buyers of U.S. refined fuel and could invite retaliation or rerouting of trade flows — like water finding another channel if one outlet is closed. For farm-state Republicans, the exchange also clarifies the political arithmetic. Support for tariffs as leverage coexists with pressure to shield producers from input inflation and export-market disruption. The White House has not announced action on the diesel proposal, leaving Grassley's call as pressure rather than policy.
