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In principle I agree with not interfering with free markets, however, I don’t know if that principle is worth economic and political suicide.

In any event, we have a comfortable export margin if diesel products. Roughly 25% of our production is exported. Therefor, we don’t need to ban exports, we just need to limit them so as to provide a domestic supply strong enough to bring prices back down to, say, their level in January, 2026.

A crude (sorry for the pun) way to do this might be to start off with an allowance of 15% of our production to be exported. That gives us a nominal surplus of 10%, or, in other words, a supply of 110% of Jan. 2026, insulated from global pricing. If that results in retail prices dropping below the Jan. 2026 level, immediately adjust to 20%. Rinse and repeat.

The oil companies, refiners, etc., were all doing ok in Jan. 2026, so, I don’t think any majors are exactly going to go out of business, plus they should make INCREASED profits overseas, at least for a while, because this policy will cause somewhat of a price bump outside the US, at least in in countries that are net importers. Sorry, dudes and dudettes. Maybe you need to send some frigates and planes to the Middle East.

BTW, I saw on Fox News this morning, an interesting development: It went by quickly, but may be pretty consequential depending on if it pans out: The UK is going to provide RAF support to Saudi Arabia?

A caveat is that we do not as of yet know what that support entails. The UK has done a lot to castrate its military over the last 2 decades. That leaves a lot of questions, such as whether the UK’s support can be tactically decisive? I suspect not, but maybe that is the wrong question. The better question, perhaps, is whether this will lead other consumers of Gulf States’ petroleum products, or, for that matter, most anyone affected by the spike in prices, to get involved. How far can that go? And if several other countries get involved, will Trump then be willing to do more?