Energy Department dismisses ban as unlikely to lower prices
Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who has largely aligned with Trump, made the embargo appeal in multiple social media posts on Sunday. “If our [government] can embargo chips to China it can embargo diesel to help American farmers & truckers,” Grassley wrote. “We need our family farmers who feed&fuel the world [to be] on the strongest footing possible no matter what’s happening across the globe.”
The national average cost of diesel was $6.51 as of Sunday, according to AAA. In Iowa, the price was slightly lower at $6.31.
The broader farmer discontent that has built for months draws on multiple administration decisions. Tariffs have raised the cost of fertilizer, machine parts, and seed. To lower beef prices for American consumers, the administration has allowed 300,000 metric tons of overseas beef trimmings to enter the US at a reduced tariff rate — a step domestic producers say will deepen competition while they already face smaller herds. The war with Iran has made it more expensive to operate machinery and transport products and has pushed grocery prices higher.
The White House, asked for comment, pointed to remarks Energy Secretary Doug Burgum and Jarrod Agen, executive director of the national energy dominance council, made at a G20 meeting in Houston earlier this month. Both men dismissed the possibility of banning diesel, gasoline or crude oil exports. “We would consider an export ban if we thought that actually might lower prices, but that’s not the case,” Burgum told reporters.
Grassley’s proposal parallels the Trump administration’s earlier embargo on semiconductor chips, which was treated as a national-security measure.
The senator’s call lands as rural voters — historically a reliable Republican voting base — express frustration with the administration. William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told the Washington Sun that the cumulative impact of administration decisions could reshape rural voting patterns. “It takes something big to change long-established voting patterns, but I think there’s a possibility that the Trump administration has done things that are big enough and bad enough from the standpoint of rural America to make some of the voters who shifted a decade ago reconsider their choice,” Galston said.
Ryan Marquardt, the vice-president of the Iowa Farmers Union, told the Washington Sun that he had “never seen farmers more pissed” than when Trump raised the imports of foreign beef.
As November’s midterms approach, Republican incumbents in farm-heavy states have begun adjusting their public posture. Iowa Congresswoman Ashley Hinson, historically a Trump ally, has shifted her campaign messaging to highlight work across the aisle and has repeatedly opposed the president’s tariff policies. Asked by the Gazette, an Iowa newspaper, whether a vote for her would amount to a vote for Trump, Hinson replied: “I vote for me is a vote for commonsense policies, and no matter who is in the White House. That’s what I’m going to focus on.”