Oil industry warns a diesel export ban will raise fuel prices as Trump weighs restrictions

The oil industry has warned a diesel export ban will backfire and exacerbate the global fuel crisis as President Donald Trump weighs restrictions.

Trump appeared to back an export ban earlier this week, as he faces mounting political pressure to tackle rising fuel prices ahead of the midterm elections in November.

"I've said let's not send out the diesel. We make a lot of diesel," Trump told reporters Tuesday on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly. "I've called for it within my people. I've been talking about it."

The American Petroleum Institute, an oil lobby group, quickly pushed back after Trump's comments. API CEO Mike Sommers warned "restricting U.S. energy exports would only compound the problem—exacerbating refining challenges and ultimately hurting consumers."

"The answer is more supply and more flexibility—not new restrictions that risk making a difficult situation worse," Sommers said in a statement Tuesday.

The stocks of U.S. refiners Valero, Marathon Petroleum and Phillips 66 fell Wednesday after Politico reported that the Trump administration is preparing a plan to ban diesel exports for 90 days.

But Energy Secretary Chris Wright told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration was considering restrictions rather than an outright export ban.

"We're trying to avoid a blunt hammer of a government policy, understanding the complexity of refining," Wright told the Journal on Wednesday.

An export ban would result in "more expensive gasoline right away," the Energy secretary said last week. U.S. refineries would cut production, including gasoline, as storage tanks are filled, said Wright, an industry insider who previously served as CEO of the oilfield services firm Liberty Energy.

"If you start putting barriers on flows, pretty quickly you will reduce the production, and you'll have less supply," Wright told The Daily Caller in an interview on Sept. 17.

An oil industry executive told CNBC's Brian Sullivan that a diesel export ban could raise the price of fuel by 30 cents per gallon. Gasoline prices could rise toward record levels if an export ban is implemented, said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, in a social media post.

An export ban would briefly lead to a price collapse but likely only on the Gulf Coast where there's a lot of refining capacity and the lower Midwest, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy and former energy advisor to President George W. Bush. The Northeast will likely not see much relief because the region is more dependent on imports, the analyst said.

After some brief relief in certain regions of the U.S., prices will rise to levels higher than they would have been otherwise as refiners cut production, McNally said. Prices will "soar globally," he said.

And there's a risk that U.S. trade partners could retaliate, McNally said. The U.S. exports diesel to Europe and the Europeans export gasoline to the U.S.

There is concern in the oil industry that Europe could ban gasoline exports to the U.S., the analyst said. This would be particularly problematic for the more import-dependent U.S. Northeast, he said.

But the White House faces mounting pressure from a growing group of Republican lawmakers to implement an export ban as diesel prices have reached record highs ahead of the midterm elections.

This past weekend, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa for the White House to "embargo diesel" to help farmers. Iowa is one of the biggest farming states in the U.S., diesel is crucial for agriculture, and Republicans face a very competitive senate race in the Hawkeye State despite voters there backing Trump three times.

Diesel cost $6.52 per gallon on average nationwide Wednesday, nearly $3 more expensive than this time last year, according to data from AAA. Gas cost $4.47 per gallon, $1.30 more expensive than the same period in 2025.

"It's panic," McNally said. "It's a tough election and historically rising diesel prices. It's full-blown panic."

It's still not clear what course of action Trump will ultimately take.

The White House is examining whether an export ban is "feasible in terms of the overall refining capacity and whether a full or partial ban would work," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Tuesday when asked by Trump to explain the administration's deliberations to the press.

A White House official told CNBC on Wednesday that Trump "wants to see gas prices at the pump fall and is evaluating all the options on the table."

One of the key reasons why diesel prices are so high right now is because Russia banned exports due to Ukraine's attacks on its refineries.

Moscow's ban removed the second-largest source of diesel from the global market. A U.S. export ban would compound the problem by removing the biggest source of diesel from the market.

"I don't know of an oil economist or expert or analyst who actually understands oil who thinks it's a good idea," McNally said. "I think there's widespread opposition, even in the administration."