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Trump and his team of “advisers” picked the worst time possible to attack Iran. Or another way to put it, damaging Epstein file materials were about to be released at the worst possible time. (Because, let’s face it, the war is yet another distraction, albeit a very, very costly one.)

 

Now Chris Wright is a very smart guy. Graduated MIT with a Bachelor’s and then a Master’s in electrical engineering. But common sense? Ethics? Maybe not so much.

 

See Chris is our Secretary of Energy. And as Secretary of Energy he announced on Tuesday that the United States Navy “successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.”

 

Wall Street popped the corks! The price of oil dropped more in one day than at any time in history.

 

As in ever.

 

But there was one problem with the announcement. It. Was. Not. True.

 

So the markets have now figured out what we did a long time ago: You cannot trust anything Trump or his hand-picked supporting actors say. The only way you’d have less chance of getting a truthful statement would be from Jon Lovitz’s “That’s the ticket” character on SNL.

 

But that’s not what I wanted to write about.

 

No, oil isn’t the biggest economic problem from the war. Food is.

 

Food? Yes, food.

 

Let’s get back to the timing of this war. I mean, even if Trump is stupid, the people surrounding him can’t all be stupid as well. Because the timing could not possibly be worse. People are understandably focusing on gas prices spiking which of course hits all of us, young and old, rich and poor. But the gas shock is trivial compared to the food shock. Here’s what almost everybody’s missing.

 

Modern agriculture is dependent on natural gas. Natural gas is transformed into ammonia and ammonia into nitrogen fertilizers such as urea which is the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer. These fertilizers are necessary to grow crops sufficient for the global population. Without it, harvests of wheat, maize and rice will fall. Dramatically.

 

Here’s some TMI for you. Wheat serves as a primary staple food for about 35% of the world's population. Another 50% of the world's population relies on rice for about 80% of their food needs. Maize (corn) only provides about 5% of the food for the world’s population but it is the primary energy source for global livestock feed. Here in America maize is the primary U.S. feed grain as in being over 95% of U.S. feed grain production which provides the essential energy for meat, dairy, and poultry production.

 

All told, just shy of 3/4 of the world's food comes from just twelve plants and five animal types with rice, wheat, and maize providing most of the United States and the world’s plant-based calories.

 

And a third of all globally traded urea goes through the Strait of Hormuz. The current closure of the Strait cuts off the flow of urea and all the other nitrogen-based fertilizers reliant on natural gas.

 

Now there are synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. But they, too, run on natural gas.

 

And guess when all the farmers in America and Europe and every country in the Northern Hemisphere need fertilizer? Just before planting season. And when is planting season?

 

So here’s the flowchart. If shipments of fertilizer and natural gas to make synthetic fertilizer don’t or might not arrive on time then farmers have to decide whether to pay sharply steeper prices for what is available or reduce crops or alter crop mixes. This then affects global supply chains into feed markets, livestock production, biofuels and ultimately food availability in underdeveloped countries along with soaring retail food prices in places like here.

 

One ominous sign yesterday was QatarEnergy declaring force majeur.

 

Ok, I’ll break down that sentence for you non-global energy experts and contract attorneys.

 

Everyone that signs a contract is expected to abide by the terms of that contract, right? Yes, but… if something truly extraordinary and unforeseeable occurs, events such acts of God like a hurricane hits or a tornado strikes or Covid happens, a party to a contract can claim the defense of force majeure. If they are sued, a court might allow them out of the contract based on force majeure.

 

What is QatarEnergy? It accounts for 60% of the country of Qatar’s entire GDP. More importantly to us, QatarEnergy is the fifth largest natural gas company in the world.

 

And they just informed everyone that they won’t be able to fulfill their contracts with the world due to the war and can’t be sued for breach based on force majeur. How big a deal was this? Both Shell and TotalEnergies then also claimed force majeure to all of their buyers. Shell and TotalEnergies are the second and third largest oil and natural gas companies on the planet.

 

See where this is going?

 

When food scarcity begins really, really bad things happen.  People and governments become desperate. Who can blame them. Trump just might do more damage not only to our country but to the entire planet than any other person in at least the past 80 years.