Thursday, September 24, 2026

Trump Mulls Export Ban

Yeah, do that.
"There isn’t one big, frictionless domestic oil and gas market for Trump to micromanage," wrote the board. In Houston, they continued, there is surplus production of diesel, "but infrastructure bottlenecks and regulatory barriers like the Jones Act make it difficult to easily transport it to, say, Boston and the rest of the East Coast, so we export the rest to buyers across the planet. Hang out in Galveston and you can watch those diesel-filled tankers sail across the horizon."

At the same time, the board wrote, East Coast states are reliant on importing diesel because they can't make enough to meet demand. "Banning U.S. exports would make those global prices skyrocket — sending the price at the pump along the Atlantic coast skyrocketing, too."

States and cities that produce a lot of petroleum might temporarily get relief at the pump, the board noted, but it wouldn't last: "Because we make more than we can use, stockpiles would build, storage tanks fill up, and refiners would have the untimely incentive to actually produce less. Meanwhile, the energy industry could be scared away from making any future investments in refining or export capacity."
So nothing would change before November; and then things would only get worse. The administration could waive the Jones Act, but diesel is still priced by the global market. Unless Trump imposes price controls and forces suppliers to ship from Texas to New England at an artificially suppressed price, nothing changes. And Trump needs congressional authority to do that. 

It would also be socialism, wouldn’t it?
And it will go down big in Texas.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)