stock here: As a former big Trump supporter, he has aged out, and ins in way over his head. Asking Zelensky to not bomb Russian energy, is bat shit crazy. Of course the Globalists funding Z will do the opposite.
Here are some ways we can have $3.50 Diesel next week.
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Yes. The U.S. could create a temporary domestic diesel market that is partially insulated from the world price, but simply telling NYMEX to use a lower price would not accomplish it. The physical arbitrage has to be interrupted too.
Right now the connection looks roughly like this:
World diesel price → export opportunity → U.S. Gulf Coast/NY Harbor spot price → ULSD futures → wholesale rack price → truck-stop price.
The futures market is therefore more messenger and transmission mechanism than the fundamental cause. NYMEX ULSD is a physically deliverable 42,000-gallon contract tied to New York Harbor, so physical supply ultimately anchors it.
And the export channel is substantial. For the week ending September 11, 2026, the U.S. exported about 1.614 million barrels/day of distillate, while domestic distillate product supplied was about 3.50 million b/d. Thus exports were running at a volume equal to roughly 46% of U.S. domestic consumption. Distillate includes products besides highway diesel, but diesel is the dominant component.
A temporary system aimed at the objective you’re describing could work something like this:
- Do not abolish diesel futures. Truckers, refiners, distributors and farmers actually need futures to hedge. Instead, change the physical arbitrage underlying the price.
- Create a temporary domestic-priority requirement for ULSD. For example, refiners could be required to make a specified quantity available to the domestic market before exporting additional barrels. Exports above that quantity could require licenses or permits. That creates two markets: Domestic diesel → U.S. supply/demand price
Export diesel → world-market price The U.S. already has an export-control regulatory framework that includes “short supply” controls, although implementing a broad new restriction on ordinary commercial diesel exports would raise statutory and administrative questions and might require congressional action rather than simply an executive directive. - If government wanted an actual domestic price ceiling, establish it at the wholesale/rack level, not by manipulating futures. A formula could conceptually be something like: Domestic diesel price = domestic crude/refinery feedstock cost + allowed refining margin + transportation So, purely illustratively, if refinery feedstock cost translated to $1.80/gal and the allowed refining/logistics margin were $0.65, domestic wholesale diesel might be approximately $2.45, even if export diesel were worth $3.20. But this only works if refiners cannot simply export the $2.45 diesel for $3.20. Otherwise the controlled product disappears from the domestic market. That was one of the chronic problems with historical commodity price controls.
- Give commercial trucking priority without trying to control every retail gallon. An alternative structure would leave the wholesale market operating normally but give licensed interstate and intrastate carriers a per-gallon credit through fuel-tax reporting. For example, a temporary $0.75/gallon commercial-carrier credit turns $4.25 diesel economically into $3.50 diesel for the trucker while leaving recreational motorists and other users at market price. That approach protects the part of diesel consumption that propagates most directly through freight rates into grocery, construction, manufacturing and virtually everything else.
- Finance the protection from the world-market differential if desired. An export fee is one possible mechanism. If world diesel were $0.80 above a specified domestic reference price, an export charge could capture part of that differential. The proceeds could fund the commercial trucking credit rather than coming from general revenue.
There is an important reason your idea is economically interesting right now. EIA says the recent run-up in diesel has been driven not merely by crude but also by a large diesel crack spread caused by tight worldwide distillate supplies. In other words, American refiners can currently earn more by turning crude into diesel because the marginal barrel has a high international value. EIA explicitly notes that international trade causes petroleum-product prices in different regions to move together and that foreign shortages can pull U.S. exports outward and raise U.S. prices.
That’s the exact arbitrage mechanism you’re describing.
The interesting middle ground
You don’t necessarily have to choose between “completely free world market” and “1970s government price controls.”
You could instead construct a temporary domestic-priority/export-surcharge system:
U.S. refinery
→ first tranche reserved for U.S. demand
→ freely traded domestically
→ futures still operate
→ excess production freely exportable at world prices
→ export charge rises when domestic inventories fall below specified thresholds.
That would allow American diesel prices to diverge somewhat from Rotterdam/Singapore/world diesel without requiring Washington to decide the retail price at every truck stop.
It would also retain an incentive to refine additional diesel: refiners could still earn world prices on incremental export barrels after satisfying the domestic obligation.
There are real counterarguments. Export restrictions can reduce refiners’ incentive to maximize production, disrupt Mexico/Latin America and other customers dependent on U.S. supply, cause inefficient regional distribution, and eventually discourage refinery investment. EIA’s trade analysis emphasizes that international product trade normally reduces shortages by moving fuel toward places with the highest scarcity. Those effects become much more consequential if such a policy persists for years rather than months.
But mechanically, your premise is sound: the United States does not have to accept complete international price convergence for domestically refined diesel. To separate the prices, however, it must address physical export arbitrage, not merely the futures market.
And given today’s numbers—~1.6 million b/d exported versus ~3.5 million b/d consumed domestically—even redirecting a fraction of exports could represent a substantial addition to the marginal domestic supply.
The next calculation I’d find useful is how much U.S. pump diesel might fall if exports were temporarily reduced by 250k, 500k, and 1 million barrels/day. That gets us from the conceptual policy discussion into the actual $/gallon effect.