Trump allows cheaper, dyed diesel on highways to blunt historic fuel-cost spike ahead of midterms

NEW: Trump allows cheaper, dyed diesel on US highways to blunt a historic fuel-cost spike ahead of the midterms, after the national average diesel price topped $6 a gallon in September for the first time ever.

Diesel topped six dollars a gallon in September, so Trump just legalised the cheap stuff.

He signed an executive order Monday night letting truckers and farmers run red-dyed diesel on public highways. That's the tax-exempt fuel normally reserved for tractors and construction gear, and putting it in a road vehicle usually gets you fined for tax evasion. Not anymore, at least through the end of the year.

The White House says a trucker could save over a hundred dollars per fill-up. The order also tells the Treasury to defer the 24 cent federal highway diesel tax through the end of 2026, no interest, no penalties, and to look at wiping those deferred taxes out entirely. The G7 is releasing a hundred million barrels of reserves after Trump threatened to ban US fuel exports.

The timing isn't subtle. Americans are paying about 700 million dollars more per day for fuel than a year ago, and the midterms are next month.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.