Diesel has never cost this much.

In late September, the average price in the United States hit $6.53 a gallon. That is the highest ever recorded.

Diesel is not just fuel for cars. It moves trucks. It runs farms. It powers factories and generators. When diesel goes up, everything it carries goes up with it.

So when a president says he has a plan to bring the price down, the whole world listens.

Last week, President Donald Trump announced a deal with Russia.

Russia would send diesel to America and to the world. First 300,000 tonnes straight away. Then 500,000 tonnes in November. Then one million tonnes more. And after that, three million tonnes, if Russia's refineries can manage it.

The United States also eased sanctions on Russian diesel for a while, until April 7 next year.

On paper, it sounds like a lot.

It is not.

Here is the number that explains why.

One analyst, Ron Bousso, added up everything Trump said Russia would supply. Together, it comes to about 12 hours of what the world uses in a day.

Twelve hours.

Another analyst, Tim Armitage of Quilter Cheviot, did a different sum. The first shipment is about 2.25 million barrels. America alone uses about 3.8 million barrels of diesel every day. So the first shipment covers less than one day of American demand.

"It won't make a material difference to pump prices in the US," he said.

That is the problem with the whole plan.

The world uses about 29 million barrels of diesel a day. America uses about 3.7 million. And America is already sitting on about 105 million barrels in its own stores.

Against numbers like that, a few hundred thousand tonnes is a drop in the tank.

There is a deeper problem too.

Before the war in the Middle East, the Gulf used to export nearly one million barrels of diesel a day. Much of that is gone now. Refineries are damaged, and ships cannot move freely.

Saudi Aramco's chief executive, Amin Nasser, gave a warning in London last week.

He said the world's commercial oil stocks have fallen below six billion barrels. He called that level "scarily thin". Most of what is left, he said, is locked inside pipelines and equipment, not sitting ready for use.

Nasser said almost three billion barrels of supply have been lost since the fighting began. Refilling those stores could take up to two years.

Goldman Sachs has already raised its forecast for Brent crude to $90 a barrel. It says the market is carrying more than $20 a barrel of risk on top of the normal price.

Brent is still above $100.

So why announce a deal that will not work?

Timing.

Americans vote in the midterm elections in a few weeks. The cost of living is one of the biggest issues, and fuel sits right in the middle of it.

One analyst called the deal "a slightly desperate move by President Trump to try to lower inflation ahead of the midterms."

There is a warning on the other side too. Some analysts believe that if Russia earns money from this deal, it could feel freer to act more aggressively elsewhere.

European ministers are due to approve a new set of sanctions on Russia on Tuesday, which could clash with the American plan.

So what does this mean for a business?

One thing is clear. The cost of moving things is not coming down soon.

If you run a shop, a farm, a delivery service or a factory, fuel is the cost you complain about most. It is also the cost you control least.

That is the hard truth. You cannot fix the price of diesel. You can only decide how much of your money goes somewhere else.

Look at what your business spends on work that repeats itself. The same replies. The same follow-ups. The same records typed twice. Every hour spent on that is an hour you already paid for.

Technology can take some of that load. Platforms like Auxi Sherpa help businesses hand the repetitive work over to automation and simple systems, so fewer hours and less money go into work that does not need a person.

When the world pushes your costs up, that is the part you can still pull back.

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