And what exactly will convince Russia to sell it except lifting of sanctions?
US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
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Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#22So "quiet" that Bloomberg's reporting on it? If you're a farmer, you're going to buy fertilizer from wherever and whomever unless prevented legally from doing so--and I, as a citizen of the US dependent on others growing this food on behalf of me, appreciate it.
quit in terms of US is importing, but the EU is expected to stay strong ideologically. Look. We all understand that the reaction to the war activistic and ideological. The more time will pass, the more politics will move towards Realpolitik.
> United States Imports from Russia of Fertilizers was US$1.28 Billion during 2021 [1]
> Using data on ship movements, real-time tracking of gas flows through pipelines and estimates based on historical monthly trade, the researchers reckoned Germany alone paid Russia about 9.1 billion euros for fossil fuel deliveries — mostly natural gas — in the first two months of the war. [2]
Let's not pretend these are comparable numbers.
It's not like the US is about to run out of food anyway. We're a massive exporter. The goal is to boost US food production enough that the 3rd world doesn't starve to death (and if food prices go through the roof, it also helps Russia). Frankly, if we were being ruthless about it, the US might be financially BETTER off if there was a worldwide grain shortage. We're still trying to stop it.
Germany is importing Russian natural gas to avoid turning on nuclear power plants for ideological reasons.
[1] https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports/russia/fe...
[2] https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-ge...
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#23Putin might not be the best military strategist but he clearly is a master troll. It’s fascinating where a decade+ of policies ranging from stupid (green tech) to batshit crazy (shutting down nuclear) has led the West (US and especially the EU/Germany). And things are only starting to unravel…
What's stupid about green tech?
I think the reference is about following the slogan, rather than developing tech. In other words, adding regulation to shut down fossil fuels (especially coal for energy) before being able to secure the economy with "clean" energy.
And of course, the misnomer of nuclear as dirty, rather than clean and efficient.
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#24What happened to all the people pushing organic fertilizers? Why don't they source more of that?
See Sri Lanka.
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#25What is this "Food Crisis" they speak of?
A spike in food prices. We can probably weather it OK in the developed world, but last time something like this happened it helped kick off the Arab Spring. Abrupt, large changes in quality of life tend to spark revolutions. They usually get people killed, and often don't result in a more-liberal government taking power.
It is not a worthy thing to do for the US, people should have to adapt to higher prices as a cost of supporting Ukraine.
As for the Arab spring, that never had a chance of working. Not even Turkey can deal with democracy and Islam.
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#261/5 of raw fertilizer materials come from Russia!
Is there a reason Russia is so prolific a source of fertilizer? I assume it's a legacy of Soviet Union attitudes towards raw material production.
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#27The US government has completely lost the ability to act strategically.
Biden is currently in Saudi Arabia begging for more oil production, meanwhile he's blocking measures to increase North American oil production. So, instead of fixing our own problem with inflation, we're asking one of the worst regimes on Earth for help and enriching Russia with higher prices simultaneously. Even if you support greener energy, like I do, this policy makes no sense other than to appear greener than you are.
The US consumer could easily handle food inflation and energy inflation if we weren't also dealing with inflation on a bunch of other fronts -- from policy-induced labor shortages and policy-induced supply chain problems. But since we've got multiple compounding problems with inflation, we're pushing everyone towards an unnecessary recession.
And of course the background here is a Fed that is whipsawing from creating trillions of dollars to destroying trillions of dollars and giving markets whiplash in the process.
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#28The hypocrisy needs to be called out. Just a few months back US put a lot of pressure on countries like India to not buy Russian oil but now it's ready to buy Russian fertilizers? US media played along with multiple reports on India buying oil when Europe was buying in much larger quantities. Countries like India should buy cheap oil from where ever they can since inflation due to high oil prices can kill people. I a…
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Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#29The West could've ended this war by now if they just went all in on sending howitzers, MLRS and other heavy equipment into Ukraine but they keep slow dripping it, or just doing nothing like Germany. The most powerful societies in the world history just twiddle their thumbs while negative consequences keep mounting.
Re: US quietly urges more use of Russia fertilizer to ease food crisis
#30The hypocrisy needs to be called out. Just a few months back US put a lot of pressure on countries like India to not buy Russian oil but now it's ready to buy Russian fertilizers? US media played along with multiple reports on India buying oil when Europe was buying in much larger quantities. Countries like India should buy cheap oil from where ever they can since inflation due to high oil prices can kill people. I a…
> The hypocrisy needs to be called out
It's only hypocrisy if you assume there are some greater moral principles driving the behavior of nations. There's not.
The US puts pressure on people to do what it wants, just like every other country does in proportion to its power. The US just happens to be a global hegemon so it's gets what it wants more often than not, and has disproportionate control over the narrative of what's happening. Russia is particularly good at realizing and exploiting the few pain points there are in US hegemony and uses that to its advantage.
Everything else is just propaganda/ideology to keep you from paying too much attention to what's going on. There's no moral narrative being played out here, and those driving policy in nation states don't sit in big rooms talking about what's "right". They talk about what they need to do to continue to prosper/remain in power and how to do it. They let the media handle attaching a narrative to it that makes it easy to swallow for the public.