In surprising news, the Trump administration has recently announced that it is going to seek other sources of fertilizer from Venezuela and Morocco, said White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett.
The latest news came amid the ongoing Iran war’s shipping constraints.
“We’ve established licenses for Venezuela to produce more fertilizer. We’ve had discussions with Morocco,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” program, calling it “an insurance policy against disruption” for U.S. farmers.
“I’m not saying that we can eliminate what disruption there is so far, but we can minimize it,” Hassett told CNBC in the interview.
Fertilizer supplies have shrunk as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran cut off critical nitrogen fertilizer supplies from the Gulf to the world’s farmers, sending prices spiking by more than one-third in recent weeks.
As reported by Reuters ,European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has floated the idea of replicating a U.N.-brokered deal that got out of Ukraine during wartime.
It allows Ukraine to export grain, foodstuffs, and fertilizers through the Black Sea without civilian vessels coming under attack by Russia. She said she had spoken to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about the idea and the U.N. was “working on this.”
