Trump's Red Diesel Order, Explained | Diving In

What this policy does is it cuts the cost of fuel for the trucker who drives the food to the store, but it raises the fuel cost for the farmers who actually grow that food.

The cost of growing and trucking food to market isn't really gonna fall.

It's even worse than that.

If the government no longer collects tax revenue, then our budget deficit grows.

That means either next year you and I are gonna pay more taxes.

On Monday night, at a campaign rally in Nebraska, President Trump signed a new executive order that he reckons will bring down the price of diesel.

Today I'm announcing another unprecedented step to bring down costs.

It's the latest in a long line of attempts to bring fuel prices down.

Earlier this week, we dug into his so-called big G7 deal.

There was less there there than you might have thought.

And by now, his list of fuel policy announcements includes just about everything except dealing with the thing that pushed prices up in the first place, the war in Iran.

This time, the plan involves changing the tax rules around something most folks have never heard of.

Don't feel bad.

Here's how the president described it right before he signed the order.

Red dye diesel.

Do you know what that is?

Yeah.

[clapping]

I don't know what the hell it is, but whatever it is, it's supposed to be very good.

Does anybody want to explain that? [laughs] Red dye diesel, everybody.

Well, that might explain some of the policy.

Here's what actually happened.

The president took a pool of diesel that farmers used, and he opened it up to truckers, and then he promised them a tax break that only Congress, not the president, can actually deliver.

And at the end of it all, guess what? America has exactly as much diesel as it had before.

Not one extra drop.