From the dark fleet to Russian diesel, there are no ‘silver bullets’ for bringing down fuel prices

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Fuel prices are historically high and voters are taking out their anger on President Donald Trump and Republicans.

Trump is waging a campaign in the final moments of the midterm election to quell discontent among farmers , truckers and drivers exhausted by $4 gas and near-record diesel.

In the past few weeks, Trump officials have unveiled a wide range of policy moves, including an $8 billion lifeline to farmers , a controversial plan to import diesel from Russia , allowing truckers to use red-dyed diesel and ways to rehab the aging armada of dark-fleet tankers.

The last-minute scramble to contain the energy price fallout is an implicit acknowledgement of how the war with Iran has exacerbated the American public’s yearslong frustration with the high cost of living – a problem Trump promised to fix on Day One.

“It looks and feels panicky because they’re panicked,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum, a center-right think tank. “They can’t move the price of diesel in the next 14 days. They have to hope they can convince voters to give them another chance.”

Some of the Trump administration’s actions could be helpful, but none of them will give voters what they crave: Cheap gas, diesel and jet fuel.

“There are no silver bullets here. None of them will solve the underlying problem,” said Bob McNally, a former energy adviser to President George W. Bush.

McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy Group, said Republicans and Democrats alike look under every rock for solutions.

“Few things terrify a sitting president more than high and rising pump prices – especially in an election year,” he said. “I have to say, I give this administration credit. They are looking under more rocks than most.”

The latest move came on Monday night on the campaign trail in Kansas where Trump announced an $8 billion lifeline for farmers.

The US Department of Agriculture said the one-time payments for American farmers this harvest season will “provide relief during temporary market disruptions and increased input costs.”

Diesel prices have skyrocketed from $3.76 a gallon nationally before the war to an all-time high of $6.53 a gallon in late September.

The spike has been especially painful for farmers, who need diesel to power their tractors and other farm equipment and also rely on diesel-powered trucks to get their food to market.

Consider that the typical farm in Kansas spent about $31,000 on diesel last year – a hefty cost that could double this year, according to Gregg Ibendahl, associate professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University.

“Farming has gotten a lot more expensive – and it was expensive to start with,” said Ibendahl.

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Beyond the diesel spike, farmers are grappling with surging costs for fertilizer, another critical input made pricier by the war with Iran.

Details on the $8 billion farmer rescue are fuzzy – the USDA says it won’t announcement payment rates for farmers until next month – but experts say the aid appears to be meaningful.

Gabriel Lade, a professor focusing on agricultural economics at The Ohio State University, said the $8 billion rescue will provide “a good amount of money” to farmers but cautioned that ad-hoc payments like this tend to be poorly targeted.

“Some farmers may come out ahead, others will still be behind,” Lade said.

The Trump administration’s fuel rescue for farmers comes less than a year after the federal government paid farmers $12 billion through the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program.

Lade said these farmer rescues have become a feature of America’s farm economy.

“We are stuck in a situation where trade wars are depressing output prices and now real wars are raising input prices,” Lade said.

Why the farm squeeze is turning Iowa into a midterm toss-up

Trump’s plan to import diesel from Russia sparked a bipartisan backlash and skepticism from researchers who say it amounts to little more than a band-aid.

The initial plan calls for importing about 2.2 million barrels of diesel, a drop in the bucket of the roughly 4 million barrels the United States consumes each day (including heating oil).

“If we imported all those barrels in one day, it would only last us until about lunch,” said Robert Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho Securities.

Diesel prices are a few pennies higher today than when Trump announced the plan, underscoring the skepticism that the war-hobbled Russian refinery system has the firepower to ramp up exports.

At a campaign event in Nebraska earlier this month, Trump signed an executive order allowing truckers to use cheaper red-dyed diesel normally reserved for farmers.

Nathan Howard/Reuters

Analysts said the move could be helpful for semi-truck drivers because it will temporarily shield them from the federal tax of 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel for highway use.

However, they cautioned it won’t be a game-changer because states also tax diesel for highway use. Some states have paused their diesel taxes , while others have not.

That creates complexity and risk for truckers crossing state lines.

Trump officials are also pushing another out-of-the-box idea designed to address high fuel prices: Bringing the dark fleet of sanctioned tankers out of the shadows.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright, speaking at an event in New York on Monday, said the Trump administration is working with investors to buy, clean up and deploy idled sanctioned tankers.

“We’re going to move some of the ships from what I call the ‘bad-guy fleet’ to the ‘good-guy fleet,” Wright told Bloomberg News .

The focus on the dark fleet is designed to address the skyrocketing cost of shipping. The daily rate to hire an oil supertanker to move crude from the Persian Gulf to China has exploded from about $65,000 last year to $1.4 million this week, according to Clarksons Research.

But deploying dark fleet vessels is easier said than done. It will require navigating a legal maze, convincing insurers to get on board and, in many cases, expensive repairs to aging tankers.

“This will likely only have a small impact because many of these vessels are already being used. The ones that aren’t are probably old and in bad condition,” McNally said.

None of the energy policy moves on their own or collectively will make gas and diesel cheap again.

The Iran war, along with the Russia-Ukraine war and Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, have created a supply chain nightmare that will take considerable time to fix.

Global energy markets are likely more than a year away from returning to normal , the head of the International Energy Agency warned on Tuesday.

“The only things that will cause an immediate decline in prices would be a recession – which is not the way anyone wants to do it – or a durable, credible peace deal,” McNally said. “And unfortunately, we don’t see that as likely.”

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燃油价格处于历史高位，选民们将怒火发泄在唐纳德·特朗普总统和共和党人身上。

在中期选举的最后时刻，特朗普发起了一场运动，试图平息农民、卡车司机和普通驾驶员的不满情绪，他们因每加仑 4 美元的汽油和接近历史最高水平的柴油价格而疲惫不堪。

在过去几周里，特朗普政府官员公布了一系列政策举措，包括向农民提供 80 亿美元的救助金、一项备受争议的从俄罗斯进口柴油的计划、允许卡车司机使用红色柴油以及修复老旧的“暗船队”油轮的方法。

为遏制能源价格下跌而进行的最后一刻的紧急行动，实际上承认了与伊朗的战争加剧了美国民众多年来对高生活成本的不满——而特朗普曾承诺在上任第一天就解决这个问题。

“他们看起来很恐慌，感觉也很恐慌，因为他们确实很恐慌，”中间偏右的智库“美国行动论坛”主席道格拉斯·霍尔茨-埃金说。“他们不可能在未来14天内改变柴油价格。他们只能寄希望于能够说服选民再给他们一次机会。”

特朗普政府的一些举措或许会有帮助，但这些举措都无法满足选民的愿望：廉价的汽油、柴油和航空燃油。

“这里没有灵丹妙药。任何一种方法都无法解决根本问题，”前总统乔治·W·布什的能源顾问鲍勃·麦克纳利说道。

Rapidan Energy Group 的创始人兼总裁 McNally 表示，共和党人和民主党人都在竭尽全力寻找解决方案。

他说：“没有什么比高企且不断上涨的油价更让在任总统感到恐惧的了——尤其是在选举年。我必须说，我赞赏本届政府。他们比大多数政府都更加努力地寻找解决方案。”

最新举措发生在周一晚间，特朗普在堪萨斯州的竞选活动中宣布了一项针对农民的 80 亿美元救助计划。

美国农业部表示，本收获季向美国农民发放的一次性补贴将“在暂时的市场中断和投入成本增加期间提供帮助”。

战前全国柴油价格为每加仑 3.76 美元，9 月下旬飙升至每加仑 6.53 美元的历史最高价。

此次油价飙升对农民来说尤其痛苦，他们需要柴油来驱动拖拉机和其他农用设备，还要依靠柴油卡车将粮食运往市场。

据堪萨斯州立大学农业经济学副教授格雷格·伊本达尔 (Gregg Ibendahl) 称，堪萨斯州一个典型的农场去年在柴油上的花费约为 31,000 美元——这是一笔不小的开支，今年可能会翻一番。

“务农的成本已经高了很多——而且一开始成本就很高，”伊本达尔说。

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除了柴油价格飙升之外，农民们还在努力应对化肥价格上涨的问题，而化肥是另一种关键投入品，由于与伊朗的战争，化肥价格也随之上涨。

关于这项80亿美元农民救助计划的细节尚不明确——美国农业部表示，要到下个月才会公布对农民的支付标准——但专家表示，这项援助似乎意义重大。

俄亥俄州立大学专注于农业经济学的教授加布里埃尔·拉德表示，这笔 80 亿美元的救助资金将为农民提供“一大笔钱”，但他同时警告说，像这样的临时性付款往往缺乏针对性。

拉德说：“有些农民可能会获利，但有些农民仍然会落后。”

特朗普政府为农民提供燃料援助的举措，距离联邦政府通过“农民桥梁援助计划”向农民支付 120 亿美元还不到一年。

莱德表示，这些农民救援行动已成为美国农业经济的一大特色。

拉德说：“我们现在陷入了一种困境，贸易战压低了产出价格，而现在真正的战争又推高了投入价格。”

为什么农业紧缩让爱荷华州的中期选举变成势均力敌的局面

特朗普从俄罗斯进口柴油的计划引发了两党人士的强烈反对，研究人员也对此表示怀疑，认为这只不过是权宜之计。

最初的计划是进口约 220 万桶柴油，这与美国每天消耗的约 400 万桶柴油（包括取暖油）相比，只是沧海一粟。

“如果我们一天之内进口所有这些桶，也只能维持到午饭时间，”瑞穗证券能源期货主管罗伯特·亚格尔表示。

如今柴油价格比特朗普宣布该计划时高出几美分，这凸显了人们对饱受战争摧残的俄罗斯炼油系统是否有能力提高出口能力的怀疑。

本月初在内布拉斯加州的一次竞选活动中，特朗普签署了一项行政命令，允许卡车司机使用通常专供农民使用的更便宜的红色柴油。

内森·霍华德/路透社

分析人士表示，此举可能对半挂卡车司机有所帮助，因为它将暂时使他们免受每加仑柴油用于高速公路行驶的联邦税 24.4 美分的征收。

然而，他们也提醒说，这不会带来根本性的改变，因为各州也对高速公路使用的柴油征税。一些州已经暂停征收柴油税，而另一些州则没有。

这给跨州运输的卡车司机带来了复杂性和风险。

特朗普政府官员还在推动另一项旨在解决高油价问题的创新想法：让受制裁的油轮“黑船队”走出阴影。

美国能源部长克里斯·赖特周一在纽约的一次活动上表示，特朗普政府正在与投资者合作，购买、清理和部署闲置的受制裁油轮。

“我们将把一些舰船从我称之为‘坏人舰队’转移到‘好人舰队’，”赖特告诉彭博新闻社。

关注“暗船队”旨在解决航运成本飙升的问题。据克拉克森研究公司（Clarksons Research）的数据显示，租用一艘超级油轮从波斯湾向中国运输原油的日租金已从去年的约6.5万美元飙升至本周的140万美元。

但部署“暗船队”说起来容易做起来难。这需要应对错综复杂的法律问题，说服保险公司参与，而且在很多情况下，还需要对老旧油轮进行昂贵的维修。

麦克纳利说：“这可能只会产生很小的影响，因为这些船只中有很多已经在使用了。那些没有使用的船只可能老旧且状况很差。”

任何一项能源政策措施，无论是单独实施还是综合实施，都无法使汽油和柴油再次变得便宜。

伊朗战争，加上俄乌战争和红海胡塞武装的袭击，造成了供应链噩梦，需要相当长的时间才能修复。

国际能源署署长周二警告称，全球能源市场可能还需要一年多的时间才能恢复正常。

麦克纳利表示：“唯一能立即导致物价下跌的因素是经济衰退——但这并非任何人所愿——或者达成一项持久、可信的和平协议。不幸的是，我们认为这两种情况发生的可能性都不大。”