Via The Cradle,

China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and QatarEnergy are expected to sign a 27-year agreement, which will allow China to purchase 4 million metric tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) a year, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

Sources familiar with the deal told Reuters that CNPC also will take an equity stake in the eastern expansion of Qatar’s North Field LNG project. The stake is the equivalent of 5 percent of one LNG train with a capacity of 8 million tonnes per year.

Despite selling equity shares in the North Field expansion to foreign firms, QatarEnergy plans to retain a 75 percent stake in the project, which will cost at least $30 billion, including the construction of liquefaction export facilities.

In April, China’s Sinopec signed a deal to become a “value-added” partner in Qatar’s North Field expansion project.

The project, with a total investment cost of $28.75 billion, aims to raise Qatar’s LNG export capacity from the current 77 million metric tonnes per annum (MTPA) to 110 MTPA, making it one of the largest LNG projects in the world, Sinopec said in a statement.

“The cooperation will help Sinopec optimize the energy consumption mix in China and secure a long-term and reliable clean energy supply to the nation. The partnership represents another model of bilateral cooperation between China and Qatar,” Sinopec said.

China is seeking increased imports of LNG from Qatar, the world’s top LNG supplier, in part to reduce dependence on LNG imports from the United States, the world’s second-largest supplier.

Some US lawmakers have touted Chinese reliance on US-produced LNG as an opportunity to exert influence over the nation with the world’s second-largest economy.

“If you want to think of it geopolitically, why wouldn’t we want China dependent on our natural gas for their own economy?” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said in an interview reported by  Politico. “Would the world not be safer, and would we not be stronger? Why wouldn’t we create more American jobs at the same time?”

However, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana explained that Chinese purchases of US-produced LNG are mutually beneficial, stating that “China gets guaranteed shipments at a certain price by providing upfront capital. That, in turn, helps U.S. companies build export terminals, which drives demand for more US drilling in places like Louisiana and Texas.”

“Right now, China is a frenemy,” he said. “If they – just like India, South Korea, Japan, the EU – are purchasing or buying, helping to pay for the capitalization of LNG export terminals, well, that’s a good thing.”

Competition for LNG has intensified since the start of the Ukraine war in February 2022. Europe needs new sources of natural gas to help replace the Russian pipeline gas that used to make up almost 40 percent of the continent’s imports. Europe cut off its own supply of Russian gas by imposing sanctions against Moscow after the start of the war.

How could this possibly happen?

Due to an accounting error, the value of weapons supplied to Ukraine by the United States was overstated by $6.2 billion over the past two years, according to AP.

Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said that a detailed review of the accounting error found that replacement costs were recorded for the equipment, not the actual book value of items pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine, adding that final calculations reveal a $3.6 billion error in the current fiscal year, and $2.6 billion in the 2022 FY, which ended last Sept. 30.

And of course, AP provides the ‘silver lining’;

As a result, the department now has additional money in its coffers to use to support Ukraine as it pursues its counteroffensive against Russia. And it come as the fiscal year is wrapping up and congressional funding was beginning to dwindle.

“It’s just going to go back into the pot of money that we have allocated” for the future Pentagon stock drawdowns, according to Sigh.

pic.twitter.com/zmElwYwKq0

— greg (@greg16676935420) June 20, 2023

The United States has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine totaling around $113 billion – some of which went towards replenishing US military equipment used on the front lines. In December, Congress approved the latest round of funding, totaling around $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies.

The ‘extra’ $6.2 billion ‘found’ for Ukraine comes as the country begins its counteroffensive against Russia in an attempt to reclaim territory held by the Kremlin’s forces since February 2022. Thus far, ‘the counteroffensive has come up against heavily mined terrain and reinforced defensive fortifications,’ according to Ukraine’s commander of the armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

US officials still haven’t provided exact totals for the amount of money that remains for Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative drawdowns, which provides longer-term funding for the purchase of weapons, including large air defense systems.

By Mark Solomon of FreightWaves

In 2022, U.S. business logistics costs, or what is spent to keep the nation’s logistics network humming, grew by an astounding 19.6% to a record $2.3 trillion, representing 9.1% of national gross domestic product, according to the 34th annual State of Logistics Report.

On a percentage basis, financial cost of inventory led the way with a 90.2% increase, fueled by the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases. From the standpoint of modes,  truckload costs rose 6.2% to $403.8 billion. Less-than-truckload costs rose 6.4% to $96.3 billion, while private or dedicated costs rose 6% to $95.8 billion.

Parcel costs rose to $217 billion, a 4.7% increase. Rail costs rose 17.6% to $99.2 billion. Maritime — which includes domestic U.S. — rose 18.4% to $36.4 billion, while airfreight rose 1.7% to $66.8 billion.

Coming off this performance, supply chain demand is likely to remain stagnant or diminish for the remainder of 2023. Still, any downturn in the U.S. economy is likely to be mild and short lived, the report, unveiled in Indianapolis Tuesday, said.

This dramatic run-up has been good news for various providers. 

“Logistics is a solutions-based discipline,” said Andy Moses, senior vice president of Penske Logistics, the third-party logistics giant and presenter of the report to the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals. Moses appeared with other executives on a Thursday webinar to discuss the report. “The requirements have never been greater and solutions’ needs from shippers are off the charts.” 

A return to post-pandemic normalcy is allowing executives to seize the moment for what the report, in its theme, called a “great reset.” According to the report, this involves a “revisiting of former arrangements, some of them overtaken by recent events, some of them cobbled together rather hastily amid the confusions of the pandemic. It is time to get clear about what is working now and what is needed to ensure resilience for an uncertain future.”

The period that the report covers, all of calendar 2022 and the early months of 2023, has been about “getting back in sync,” the report’s author, global consulting firm Kearney, said. Among the core features is a “shift among logistics executives from strictly transactional perspectives to a more strategic and holistic sense of the function’s role. Flexibility and resilience have overtaken cost as the key discussion points among supply chain leaders, according to executives appearing on the webinar.

“What’s clear … is that the age of building supply chains just around cost-reduction considerations is over,” the report said. “A new value has taken center stage: resilience.”

The report cautioned, however, that the optimal ways of achieving resilience are not always present. For example, an increasing fragmentation of demand means that massive distribution center footprints are becoming less profitable. Yet shippers often need a large footprint to ensure high levels of service and sufficient inventory levels, according to the report.

Logistics leaders are responding by taking a more holistic and comprehensive view of their value chains. They are diversifying their sourcing to avoid overreliance and to ensure ample workarounds in the case of sudden disruption, the report said.

“Our report shows that now is the time to begin thinking seriously and proactively when it comes to building strategic capacity,” said Balika Sonthalia, senior partner at Kearney and the report’s co-author. “Although the market has swung back in shippers’ favor — to the detriment of carriers — we cannot emphasize enough the importance for all industry participants to begin planning for geopolitical tensions, cybersecurity threats, climate change and related natural disasters, slowing e-commerce growth and global recessionary factors.”

Below is a tally of some of the main sectors:

• Air — Worldwide revenue will reach $150 billion in 2023. This is 25% below 2022, when the sector was still profiting from historically high rates. But it is still 50% higher than the pre-COVID revenue figures from 2019. A falloff in demand and a surge in belly capacity as international passenger flights resumed led to decline. East-west rates dropped 23% during 2022. “Supply will exceed demand for some time,” said Robert Walpole, vice president, cargo at Delta Air Lines.
• Motor — Trucking saw little change in overall volume as shippers weighed concerns about inflation, rising interest rates and overstocked inventories. At the same time, capacity increases led to a sharp drop in spot rates. Those changing dynamics have induced shippers, which turned toward dedicated fleets to address the capacity challenges of the pandemic, to seek a new balance of dedicated, private and one-way service.
• Freight forwarding — The freight forwarding market is expected to grow 6.3% compounded per year to $90.7 billion by 2031. The growth derives from the continued expansion of e-commerce and the ongoing pressure of shippers to trim costs and improve the efficiency of their supply chains. Digital forwarding is expected to grow annually by 23.1% on a compounded basis. The trend within the forwarding sector is toward more comprehensive offerings and thus more increased market consolidation.
• Rail — Class I railroads saw operating income increase 8% year over year and total revenue rise by 14%, gains largely attributed to price increases. However, rising costs undermined operating ratios. The sector also suffered from service-related issues including poor velocity levels, increased terminal dwell and high-profile derailments.
• Warehousing — As retailer demand slows, users should get better deals on pricing and availability for the balance of the year. Even with available space increasing due to robust additional construction, companies are hesitant to occupy it as they try to get rid of excess inventory and use existing space more efficiently. 
• Parcel and last mile — The explosive growth in e-commerce resulting from the pandemic has begun to moderate as shippers have returned to stores. Even as the U.S. parcel market has grown to its largest size ever, its percentage of retail sales has begun to flatten. Volumes declined by 2% in 2022 but are expected to grow by 5% compounded annually over the next five years. One especially vibrant sector is same-day delivery, which is expected to grow to $7.9 billion in 2027, an 18.8% compound annual growth rate over 2022.

Millions of Americans who took out loans to purchase overpriced used vehicles during the pandemic are at risk of going underwater. Financing costs are soaring, and used car values are sliding, culminating into a perfect storm as only the tip of the negative equity iceberg appears. 

On Tuesday, credit reporting firm TransUnion and market researcher J.D. Power published a new report warning in recent quarters that used car loan-to-value ratios (LTVs) at origination have “trended in the wrong direction for consumers.” 

Originating LTVs in the first quarter averaged 125%, up from 110% for used cars in the same quarter a year ago—and up 21 percentage points versus the same period in 2021. A lower LTV indicates the borrower has more equity in their auto loan, and one above 100% means the loan exceeds the value. 

“As vehicle prices have risen and overall inflation remains elevated, consumers are increasingly starting in higher than average LTV positions to afford used vehicles. It’s more important than ever for consumers to effectively manage their payments to fit within their budgets while also allowing for a cushion for other ongoing expenses like insurance and repairs,” said Satyan Merchant, senior vice president and auto business lead at TransUnion.

Merchant expects “accelerated depreciation” of used vehicles in the quarters ahead will result in a surge of borrowers with negative equity. He said, “This will be especially important for lenders to monitor.” 

In a separate report, Ivan Drury, Edmunds’ director of insights, warned: “We are only seeing the tip of the negative-equity iceberg,” with vehicle prices, mostly used car prices, expected to keep sliding this year. 

We penned a note in January detailing “More Americans Can’t Afford Their Car Payments Than During The Peak Of Financial Crisis.” The note explains that borrowers are overleveraged with +$1,000 monthly used car payments. And it’s only when the next recession strikes and unemployment rises that a surge in delinquencies will give rise to a flood of repossessed vehicles hitting the used car market, driving prices down even further. 

Authored by Gilbert Doctorow

What I am about to say is surely known and under analysis in the American intelligence agencies. It is being used by the Pentagon to quietly change its nuclear force posture in Europe. However, we hear not a word about it in the media, not in mainstream, and not yet in alternative news.

I maintain that it is very important for it to be heard and reflected upon by the general public in the United States and in Europe, disagreeable though it may be at the start of a new week. So here goes…

Last Friday when I published my selective account of the Q&A session with President Vladimir Putin at the culmination point of the St Petersburg International Economic Forum I omitted one important issue: how Russia will respond to the dispatch of “Ukrainian” F-16s from some air base in a NATO country into the war zone in Ukraine.  I was considering remedying that oversight on Saturday morning when a comment from one reader forced my hand. She wrote in that Italy’s daily newspaper La Repubblica quoted Putin as saying on Friday Russia will destroy such a base in response. I responded on Saturday in the Comments section that the Russian President had in fact been evasive in his comment, saying only that Russia could destroy such a base and was now taking the issue under advisement.

However, yesterday evening’s edition of the Vladimir Solovyov talk show indicates that the Republicca reporter was closer to the truth than I. A patient and knowledgeable Russian colonel in retirement who is a frequent guest on the talk show explained  that the Kremlin is now considering exactly with what means to destroy such a NATO air base, not whether to do it. And the likely means will be use of tactical nuclear weapons on a Ramstein or whatever NATO base is involved. We may say that Germany is placing itself in the bulls-eye of any escalation in the Ukraine war if it proceeds with the F-16s to Ukraine program.

Why all the fuss over the F-16s, you may ask. After all, Putin has said loud and clear that Russia will destroy the F-16s in the air just as it has been destroying the Leopard tanks and America’s Bradley armored personnel carriers while pushing back the ongoing Ukrainian counter-offensive. To understand better, we have to thank the good colonel once again. He alerted us to an important detail that you will not find mentioned in The New York Times: the first F-16s scheduled to be supplied to the Ukrainian Air Force are from Belgium and Denmark, and are all nuclear-capable, which is not a necessary feature of these planes.  Since the Russians are unable to determine what kind of munitions the “Ukrainian” F-16s will actually be delivering to the war zone, they must assume that they are carrying tactical nuclear bombs intended to be dropped on the Russian Army troop concentrations. The effect of such an attack could be devastating, hence the Russian threat to the air bases from which such planes are launched.

The next important revelation made during the Solovyov show came with respect to the first delivery of tactical nuclear weapons to Minsk which was marked by a visit to Belarus and interview with Lukashenko by the co-host of the Sixty Minutes news and discussion show Olga Skabeyeva. In answer to her question about where the nuclear warheads are being stored, Lukashenko said ‘everywhere.’  The meaning of this was kindly deciphered for us laymen by the colonel in retirement on the Solovyov program:  this signifies a cardinal shift in the Russian handling of tactical nuclear arms away from their traditional separation of the warheads kept in a central storage far from the delivery carriers to the method used by the U.S. military with respect to its tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. The Americans, he said stored the nukes just under the jets that would be used to deliver them.  Now in Belarus, the warheads will also be just next to the planes and Iskander missiles that will carry them. This means that the time to launch will depend only on the time for approval from the Boss. And with respect to that, Lukashenko told Skabeyeva that he had just to make a phone call to Vladimir Vladimirovich and approval would be instantaneous.

Why such a hair-trigger mechanism for unleashing nuclear weapons to defend Belarus?  For an answer to that, go to Monday’s article in The Financial Times on how Poland is now preparing hundreds of Belarus fighters to go across the border and overthrow Lukashenko. To which I can only say:  Warsaw, watch out!  Lukashenko is one bold and decisive defender of his country, as his standing on the streets with a Kalashnikov in his hands when there were Western financed and promoted street demonstrations in Minsk aiming to overthrow him.

Still another item from the Solovyov show demanding our attention concerns what the good colonel calls the American response to the shipment of nuclear arms to Belarus:  America now plans to install tactical nuclear weapons in Romania and Poland.  Why, one might ask, in those two countries? For that you need only consider what the Kremlin has been saying for more than a decade about the U.S. bases set up in both countries supposedly to house anti-ballistic missile systems intended to bring down Iranian missiles fired on Europe. The Russians always objected that these installations would be dual-purpose and were a cover for placing nuclear-armed cruise missiles directed against themselves.  Now if the USA indeed puts such missiles into the two countries, the Russian claims will have been vindicated and Washington is shown, yet again, to be a blatant liar on the world stage.

Finally, the colonel gave us an invaluable insight to changes in Russian thinking on tactical nuclear weapons which we otherwise missed. I have in mind Putin’s answer at the Forum to the question of whether Russia would use tactical nuclear weapons in the Ukraine theater. Putin’s loud and clear ‘no’ was, of course, an answer to the proposals of Sergei Karaganov for preemptive and instructive nuclear strikes in his just published essay in the magazine Russia in Global Affairs. As I reported, Putin went on to say that Russia has no need to show force by some preemptive strike because everyone knows it has many more tactical weapons than the West. And while the United States has called for talks on reduction of stockpiles of such weapons, Russia will not enter into such talks, and says to the West, “fuck you,” if I may translate his rude remark in Russian into corresponding four-letter English.

That last remark brought smiles to the faces of many Russians in the audience. But it was not just theatrics, says the good colonel: in fact Russia had been talking with Americans about the possibility of reducing stockpiles, but now, in the context of the NATO proxy war it has no intention of resuming such talks.

With that I end today’s survey of our dismal progression on the way to Armageddon.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

An IRS agent used a fake identity to approach and threaten a taxpayer, following which House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel seeking further information on the incident.

The incident occurred on April 25, 2023, when an IRS agent identifying as “Bill Haus” with the agency’s Criminal Division visited the home of a taxpayer residing in Marion, Ohio, according to the June 16 letter (pdf). The agent initially lied to the taxpayer that he was visiting with regard to her improper estate filings and that she owed a “substantial amount” to the IRS. Before his visit, the taxpayer had not received any notification from the tax agency regarding unpaid dues on the estate.

After the taxpayer showed proof that she had paid all taxes for the estate, agent Haus then said that the true purpose of his visit was not related to the estate but that the taxpayer allegedly had several delinquent tax return filings. He then proceeded to provide documents for the taxpayer to fill out—including submitting sensitive personal information.

The taxpayer immediately called her attorney, who asked Agent Haus to leave her home. The agent responded aggressively, insisting that “I am an IRS agent, I can be at and go into anyone’s house at any time I want to be.”

Before leaving her home, Haus “threatened” the taxpayer that she had one week to pay off her dues, failing which he would freeze her assets and put a lien on her home, the letter notes. In May, the taxpayer contacted Haus’ supervisor, who subsequently resolved the matter. On May 30, she received a letter from the IRS stating that her case had been closed.

The committee asked the IRS commissioner to provide certain documents so that it could examine “how to best protect Americans’ fundamental freedoms and to assist the Committee in its oversight.” The documents are to be submitted by June 30.

The committee is seeking all documents and communications related to Haus’ visit to the taxpayer together with IRS’ reasons for conducting the field visit. Documents and communications between the IRS, Treasury, and any other executive branch related to the visit need to be submitted as well.

The judiciary committee also wants all materials sent or received by the agent related or referring to the taxpayer, the MPD officer, or the estate as part of the investigation.

Complaint Against Investigating Officer

Agent Haus also filed (pdf) a complaint against an officer investigating him in relation to his visit to the Ohio taxpayer. After Haus left, the taxpayer called the Marion, Ohio Police Department (MPD), worried that she was subject to a scam.

After checking the license plate of the car that Haus drove, the MPD learned that the name was an alias. An officer then contacted Haus to verify his identity.

Read more here…

Chinese troop stationed on America’s doorstep? The Wall Street Journal is reporting Tuesday that China is in negotiations with the Cuban government to establish a a new joint military training facility on the island.

The newspaper says the two sides are already in advanced negotiations about opening the facility, which would reportedly be in northern Cuba, sparking fears among US officials that it could eventually host a permanent Chinese troop presence. The Biden administration is seeking to intervene with Cuban officials, attempting to block the possibility. 

It’s also believed that China would expand its espionage capabilities and activities given the military foothold would be a mere 100 miles off Florida’s coast. This comes on the heels of widespread reports earlier this month that China wants to use Cuba as a base of spy operations, to potentially sweep up communications of American military installations across the southeast United States.

Biden administration officials then in follow-up admitted that China has had a spy base in Cuba since at least 2019 (though without specifying whether this is a standalone base or consulate). 

The new WSJ revelation is based on anonymous US intelligence sources and documents. “Discussions for the facility on Cuba’s northern coast are at an advanced stage but not concluded, U.S. intelligence reports suggest,” the publication writes. “The Biden administration has contacted Cuban officials to try to forestall the deal, seeking to tap in to what it thinks might be Cuban concerns about ceding sovereignty.”

But the report underscores that US intelligence itself is less than certain regarding an impending joint Chinese-Cuban military base:

U.S. officials said reference to the proposed new training facility in Cuba is contained in highly classified new U.S. intelligence, which they described as convincing but fragmentary. It is being interpreted with different levels of alarm among policy makers and intelligence analysts.

According to further details in the WSJ report:

Most worrying for the U.S.: The planned facility is part of China’s “Project 141,” an initiative by the People’s Liberation Army to expand its global military base and logistical support network, one current and one former U.S. official said.

China and Cuba already jointly run four eavesdropping stations on the island, according to U.S. officials. That network underwent a significant upgrade around 2019, when a single station expanded to a network of four sites that are operated jointly, and Chinese involvement deepened, according to the officials.

We emphasized in our earlier commentary on deepening China-Cuba relations that from Beijing’s perspective, Cuba is ‘fair game’ given Washington’s longtime presence in Taiwan. The level of US military and intelligence infrastructure in place across the South China Sea and among Washington’s regional allies not far off China’s coast, even firmly entrenched on the island of Taiwan, are already immense and growing. Of course for Americans, Monroe Doctrine assumptions are still alive and well, and deeply ingrained. 

US intelligence and the WSJ are catching on and belatedly acknowledging this crucial factor…

“Some intelligence officials say that Beijing sees its actions in Cuba as a geographical response to the U.S. relationship with Taiwan: The U.S. invests heavily in arming and training the self-governing island that sits off mainland China and that Beijing sees as its own,” WSJ writes. “The Journal reported that the U.S. has deployed more than 100 troops to Taiwan to train its defense forces.”

And additionally, the report spells out the following:

Taiwan is roughly 100 miles from mainland China, about the same distance Cuba is from Florida.

China has no combat forces in Latin America, according to U.S. officials. Meanwhile, the U.S. has dozens of military bases throughout the Pacific, where it stations more than 350,000 troops. Chinese officials have pointed this out when they push back on American efforts to counter their military expansion outside of the Indo-Pacific.

Indeed both China and Russia have long pointed out such Washington hypocrisy when it comes to expanding troops presence and military infrastructure abroad. 

Perhaps with that in mind, Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to calm Beijing’s worst fears when he stressed in a press briefing at the end of his two-day Beijing trip where he met with President Xi Jinping, “We do not support Taiwan independence.”

And yet, by trip’s end it became clear that little progress was made toward mending US-China relations, given for example Xi refused to resume direct military communication with Pentagon officials. He even shut the door on restoring a military crisis hotline, which helps to two sides avoid inadvertent conflict in places like the South China Sea, where both frequently patrol.

Tucker Carlson savaged the Biden family on Tuesday, hours after it was announced that Hunter Biden would receive a slap on the wrist – and would only be required to plead guilty to simple tax crimes and a gun charge, despite what many would say is obvious evidence that he’s been acting as a foreign agent.

Carlson noted how none of the charges have to do with influence peddling – including Hunter’s alleged role as an international bag man for the Biden family (alleged, of course), which included a $10 million payment from Burisma to Hunter and Joe Biden, according to an FBI source.

“Investigators had ‘identified payments to Biden family members from foreign companies, while Joe Biden served as Vice President and after he left public office.'”

“So actually there was something there. It was a scandal,” Carlson said. “Racketeering, money laundering, wire fraud. Those are some of the crimes the Bidens seem to have committed.”

Watch:

Ep. 5 As in most of the developing world, it’s safer to be the president’s son than his opponent. pic.twitter.com/AtRRaxYSjs

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) June 20, 2023

“Donald Trump had an idea, ‘they’ll hit Hunter with something small to make their strike on me look fair.’ Trump wrote that about two weeks ago,” said Carlson. “And it turned out, those were prescient words. This morning, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to pretty much nothing. Biden pleaded to two misdemeanor tax evasion charges and then entered a diversion on a federal gun charge. That’s it. As far as Merrick Garland’s justice department is concerned, Hunter Biden is done. There was no pre-dawn raid carried live simultaneously on CNN, there was no perp walk, no handcuffs, no press conference.”

“Above all, there was no felony. Hunter Biden who broke federal gun laws can still carry a gun. It’s like it all never happened,” Carlson continued.

According to the Washington Post, Hunter, 53, is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges of failure to pay in 2017 and 2018, for a combined tax liability of roughly $1.2 million. He’ll also admit to illegally possessing a weapon after his 2018 purchase of a handgun – which will likely result in a ‘diversion program’ which would result in the removal of the gun charge if all of the program’s conditions are met.

The former Fox News host also noted how the White House has dismissed the investigations as politically motivated and irrelevant to Joe Biden’s presidency. He also questioned Hunter’s source of income – highlighting his art sales and book deal, which Carlson implied could be tied to money laundering and influence peddling.

“If you didn’t know what a virtuous person Hunter Biden was you might think it looked a lot like money laundering,” said Carlson, referring to an interview he gave to ABC in 2019. “Two years after that interview, Hunter Biden was selling prints of his art — and to be clear, just the prints, not the art itself – but effectively photocopies of it for seventy five thousand dollars a pop!”

“Apparently Hunter Biden moved five of these Repros in just days. That’s $375,000 in less than a week for signed copies of your fake art. 

“As for the paintings themselves, childish self-indulgent blots, those sold for half a million dollars a piece. So the question is; who bought them and why? It’d be interesting to know, there’s a story there for sure, but of course we have no right to know.”

Tucker gets it. Biden has weaponized the DOJ the same way 3rd world Dictators do, to target his political opposition and protect his corrupt family. https://t.co/bHjl34KO28

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 20, 2023

The investor pushback against “woke capitalism” has led to the proliferation of funds that market themselves as opposed to environmental, social, or governance (ESG). A new report via Morningstar reveals even though anti-ESG funds gained momentum in late 2022, popularity for the funds has since waned. 

Morningstar said anti-ESG funds peaked at around $377 million during the third quarter of 2022, more than five times the previous quarterly record. Total new deposits fell to $188 million in the fourth quarter and were about the same in the first three months of 2023. 

Over April and May, the funds only took in about $58 million, Morningstar spokesperson Erin Parro told Reuters. She said the current trend into anti-ESG funds “seems like a drizzle” compared with the rush last year when GOP lawmakers vilified ESG moves at BlackRock and Vanguard. 

“Although there’s been a lot of talk about anti-ESG funds, it’s not clear that they have staying power,” Morningstar’s Alyssa Stankiewicz and Mahi Roy wrote in the report. 

Morningstar groups anti-ESG funds into five categories: Anti-ESG, Political, Renouncer, Vice, and Voter. 

One of the top anti-ESG funds, Strive US Energy ETF, received $300 million in the month after it launched last August. Strive co-founder Vivek Ramaswamy stepped away from executive chairman earlier this year to run for US president. 

Morningstar pointed out that Strive has voted against eleven key ESG shareholder resolutions in top publicly traded companies this year. These resolutions included pay equity, freedom to unionize, lobbying activities, and working conditions. 

Despite the slowing interest in anti-ESG funds, the 27 anti-ESG funds Morningstar tracked had total assets of $2.1 billion at the end of the first quarter. A year earlier, the figure was around $282 million.  

It’s hard to say if the waning interest is because anti-ESG is just a fad or if stocks, in general, are out of favor with investors because the earnings yield on benchmark equity indexes has now fallen below that on three-month bills for the first time since the Dot-Com bubble.

We suspect anti-ESG funds will stick around due to the deeper polarization of the American people. We’ve already seen “GOP “Wrecking Ball” Erodes Support For Woke ESG Shareholder Proposals.” 

By Khaled Abu Toameh of Gatestone Institute

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states apparently still do not trust the Biden Administration, largely because of its perceived abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in the Middle East and President Joe Biden’s hostility to Saudi Arabia. This view began with then-presidential candidate Biden declaring the kingdom a “pariah” state — and is continuing with US attempts, still ongoing, to revive a “nuclear deal” that will enable an expansionist Iran to have nuclear weapons potentially to topple other countries in the region.

Saudi Arabia is not likely to improve its relationship with the Biden Administration in the aftermath of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to the Kingdom in early June, according to Arab political analysts and columnists.

“The Biden administration has misjudged its approach to the Middle East,” noted Jason Greenblatt, former Representative for International Negotiations for the Trump administration. “It alienated the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, and wasn’t particularly great with the United Arab Emirates.”

Meanwhile, the same Biden Administration has continued to cozy up to the Iranian regime, which the US’s own Department of State has called the “top state sponsor of terrorism” and which has, until recently, has not only been attacking both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates through Iran’s proxy militia, the Houthis in Yemen, but has also been supplying troops and weapons to Russia for attacking Ukraine.

The message being sent is that being America’s enemy pays handsomely, but, as with Afghanistan, being its friend can be fatal.

“US President Joe Biden visited Jeddah last summer and met King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman,” noted Syrian author and political analyst Fatmeh Yasmin.

“That visit was a turning point in the history of the long relationship between the two countries, because it came from a president who had announced strict positions against Saudi Arabia during his election campaign. After he entered the White House, Biden quickly implemented what he pledged against the Kingdom: stopping the export of offensive weapons to it, punishing some Saudi security officials, and preventing many Saudi personalities from entering the US by not granting them visas.”

Referring to Blinken’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, Yasmin said that the Biden administration is pretending that the old alliance between the Saudis and Americans has not changed.

“But Saudi Arabia, during the year separating the visit of Biden and Blinken, turned towards the Far East, unleashed unbridled relations with China, and allowed the Chinese to launch a Saudi-Iranian dialogue that led to the opening of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh after a seven-year diplomatic break… Ironically, the opening day of the restoration of the Iranian embassy in Riyadh was the day the US Secretary of State arrived in Jeddah. His visit also coincided with the visit of Venezuelan President [Nicolás] Maduro, whom the US places on the list of its enemies. Blinken, however, swallowed all that, and talked about good relations [with Saudi Arabia].”

Yasmin added that Saudi Arabia is not expected to make a full turn once again towards the US administration, as Biden’s last year in office is approaching and he will devote his time to his critical reelection campaign.

Yasmin pointed out that Saudi Arabia’s current policy was based on strengthening its relations with China and achieving reconciliation with Iran, Turkey and even Syria. “The current Saudi effort is completely devoted to building a Middle East in which the Kingdom would play a major role and strengthen its own economy and that of its neighbors,” she said.

The London-based Rai Al-Youm online newspaper said that Blinken’s visit to Saudi Arabia failed to achieve most of its goals, including promoting normalization between the Kingdom and Israel. According to Rai Al-Youm, the Saudi media ignored Blinken’s visit, while playing up the arrival of former Real Madrid soccer player Karim Benzema in the Kingdom after he joined the Saudi club Al-Ittihad.

“It was remarkable that the official Saudi media ignored, and certainly deliberately, the two-day visit of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the Kingdom,” the newspaper said.

“He was the second US official to visit Saudi Arabia in the past month after US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who was met with extreme coldness by Saudi officials and reportedly waited for three days before he had a meeting with the Saudi Crown Prince.”

Rai Al-Youm noted that Saudi newspapers published news about Blinken’s meetings with the Saudi Crown Prince and the foreign ministers of the Gulf states on the inside pages and in small print.

“Whoever wanted to read the news needed a magnifying glass,” the newspaper said.

“This [Saudi attitude] reflects the official view of the kingdom’s senior leadership. By contrast, the news and pictures of the French football player’s arrival in the Kingdom appeared on the front pages.”

The newspaper said that Blinken failed to convince the Saudis to normalize their relations with Israel. “The Saudi leadership had decided on its options and has redrawn the map of its international strategic alliances,” it argued.

“Blinken’s failed visit was an explicit reflection of these changes, and that is why we were not surprised to see the Kingdom received Blinken by reducing oil production in coordination with Russia and in an explicit defiance of the American demands to raise the production. Today, Saudi Arabia stands in the trench of the China-Russia alliance and supports a multipolar world while leaving the door partly open with the US and the West, perhaps in preparation for its semi-final closure. What is certain is that Blinken will return to Washington depressed after his visit failed to achieve most of its objectives.”

Aziz Alghashian, a Saudi analyst specializing in Gulf-Israel ties, said that Saudi Arabia does not want to present a gift to the Biden Administration by normalizing the Kingdom’s relations with Israel:

“This is not the American administration that Saudis want to gift a Saudi-Israeli normalization to… It’s going to be a massive achievement, it’s going to be under an American umbrella, and they don’t want the Biden administration to take any credit for that.”

In what appears as another sign of disrespect towards the Biden Administration, the Saudi Crown Prince was talking on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin while Blinken was meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan. According to some reports, Putin and the Saudi Crown Prince praised cooperation between their countries within the framework of OPEC+.

Despite the continued lack of clarity in Washington’s policy, wrote Lebanese columnist Sam Mansi, the visits to Saudi Arabia by Blinken and Sullivan aimed to allow the US to play three roles: reproduce the Chinese-brokered normalization between Saudi Arabia and Iran so it could be used for other purposes; stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons by returning to the negotiations with Tehran, and confront Iran’s activities in Gulf waters while activating the American role in protecting the security of the region in general.

“These three roles are considered reactions to the course of changes in the region that were anchored by the recent agreement between Riyadh and Tehran,” Mansi remarked.

“There are many obstacles to America’s success in playing these roles, including what is related to the nuclear file, as a nuclear Iran remains a concern for the Gulf and for other countries in the region. The [Saudi] agreement with Iran may alleviate this concern, but it will not dispel it. Washington’s success in settling this file in a way that does not threaten the security and stability of the Gulf states is the bottom line and it is what will determine the future of Washington’s relations with the countries of the region.”

Mansi added that the Biden administration has not yet understood that Saudi Arabia, like the Gulf countries in general, gives priority today to its national interests and the aspirations of its people, and is trying to balance its relations between East and West, in addition to pursuing a policy of “zero problems” with everyone, and accordingly it is worth reading the Saudi-Iranian reconciliation from this lens. Do the three roles constitute an American strategy towards the region? The answer is no. Everything that the US administration is doing to restore its involvement in the region remains weak in the face of the Chinese openness.

Mansi continued:

“Whatever Blinken achieved during his visit to Saudi Arabia will remain weak and incomplete in the face of the dangers of ongoing tensions in Yemen, Syria, Iraq and other conflict areas, most notably the civil war that broke out recently in Sudan, in addition to the comprehensive challenges posed by the fraught relations between Iran and Israel, which may explode if there is no progress in the nuclear talks, and if more daring steps are not taken to limit Iran’s continuation of uranium enrichment, and Iran’s public support for Russia and its cooperation with it in the context of the war against Ukraine.”

Judging from the reactions of these Arabs to Blinken’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia, it is clear that the Saudis and other Arabs have lost confidence in the Biden administration and are not pinning any hopes on it to bring security and stability to the Middle East.

Moreover, it is evident that the Saudis feel so offended by Biden that they are willing to move closer to Iran and Russia if that enables them to steer clear of the American president. It will take more than a visit by Biden or Blinken or Sullivan to repair the damage that has been done to America’s relations with Arab countries that used to respect the US. In fact, it is safe to assume that the Arabs’ attitudes toward the Biden administration will remain steady regardless of any effort that this administration might choose to make.