Too Little Too Late
On the afternoon of October 9, 2026, a gallon of diesel in the United States cost $6.28, down from a record $6.53 set on September 22 but still up roughly 70 percent since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran in February (ABC News Australia, 2026). President Donald Trump placed a call to President Vladimir Putin, ostensibly to discuss a suspected outbreak of plague in Russia. What he announced instead was a deal: Russia would send more than 300,000 metric tons of diesel to “the American and Global Marketplace” at once, another 500,000 tons in November, one million tons “immediately thereafter,” and then, if its refineries allowed it, three million more. Diesel prices, the president wrote on Truth Social, “will be COMING DOWN, IN RECORD NUMBERS, AND FAST!” (The Business Standard, 2026). ...