TRUMP SAYS HE CALLED FOR A BAN ON DIESEL EXPORTS — “WE MAKE A LOT OF DIESEL” — HIS OWN ADMINISTRATION SPENT THE YEAR RESISTING THE IDEA

At the United Nations on September 22, sitting next to Ukraine’s president, Trump told reporters he wants American diesel kept at home. Reuters has the words: “I’ve said let’s not send out the diesel. We make a lot of diesel ... I’ve called for it.” Axios notes his own administration spent months resisting calls to restrict fuel exports.

It is not policy yet. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the administration is looking at whether a ban is workable and whether it would be full or partial. Republican Senate candidates have been pushing for it ahead of the November midterms, with diesel high and farmers and truckers paying it.

The arithmetic is the same as it was last week when Louisiana asked for a ninety-day version. Diesel is priced in a world market. Keep the barrels home and the American price falls while the world price rises, and the refiner eats the difference on every barrel it can no longer sell abroad. Refiners who earn less refine less. Trump also blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for the price, which is another way of saying the shortage is not made in America.

Bitcoin holders can read this as a fuel story or as a money story. A government that cannot make more diesel can still tell you where the diesel goes, and it can print the dollars you pay for it either way. One of those levers changes supply. Neither one changes the twenty-one million. At the time of this writing, bitcoin was $86,276.