Did Trump Kick Off a Global Food Crisis With Iran War?
The global trade crisis sparked by Donald Trump’s illegal war in Iran may soon become a global food crisis, as farmers facing surging fertilizer prices warn they won’t be able to plant their crops, according to a report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Fertilizer prices are rising due to the halt of trade through the Strait of Hormuz, which has been essentially closed since the United States and Israel launched their first wave of attacks on February 28. This abrupt stoppage comes as farmers in the northern hemisphere would typically order fertilizer to arrive next month for the upcoming planting season.The Trump administration has pushed to resume the flow of energy through the Persian Gulf, but oil wasn’t the only export trapped at sea. One-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf countries are responsible for producing 13 percent of the world’s fertilizer exports.Another commodity trapped at the Strait of Hormuz is liquefied natural gas, which is used in the production of nitrogen fertilizers. Twenty percent of all natural gas exports travel through the Persian Gulf’s essential passageway. As a result, the benchmark price of urea, the most common variety of nitrogen fertilizer, surged 30 percent in the last month. The U.S. produces three-quarters of the fertilizer it consumes, but farmers are concerned about the already record-high prices of materials, which could continue to climb.In a letter sent to President Donald Trump Monday, the American Farm Bureau Federation warned that the shock to the fertilizer supply chain would drive prices even higher.“Not only is this a threat to our food security—and by extension our national security—such a production shock could contribute to inflationary pressures across the U.S. economy,” wrote AFBF President Zippy Duvall. Economists and fertilizer experts anticipate that the disruptions to global trade will further drive up inflation, and the South Carolina Farm Bureau publicly fretted that farmers “are not going to be able to finance planting their crop.”It appears that Trump’s frivolous military campaign in Iran is threatening to upend the entire northern hemisphere’s food system. That not only includes the United States but also Mexico, Canada, and the European Union, which are the largest agricultural exporters to the United States.If the Strait of Hormuz remains closed for much longer, it could threaten the entire global agriculture cycle. Smaller agrarian countries that do not produce their own fertilizer would be the first to see widespread crop failures.