Now that Ford and GM are joining forces with Tesla on charging infrastructure, the industry tide seems to be turning to one accepted standard: Tesla’s North American Charging Standard (NACS) port.

Brilliantly using an analogue to the old Blu-ray vs HD DVD wars of days past, The Verge highlights how Tesla is shouldering its way to the front of the line when it comes to EV charging protocols.

Combined with Ford and GM, Tesla’s standard now makes up 72% of the U.S. market. Its closest competitor, the Combined Charging System (CCS), gets the ill fated comparison to HD DVD, the now defunct video format from years past.

Gartner vice president and analyst Mike Ramsey commented: “CCS could be in trouble With Ford and GM agreeing to use that charging standard, it’s a bit like Samsung saying they will use the Apple lightning charger on its phones.”

CCS is still on the dole from the U.S. government, however, as federal funding remains limited to the CCS format, the report says. 

White House spokesperson Robyn Patterson told the Verge that there are minimum standards chargers must meet to get funding, but that NACS could meet this threshold: “Those standards give flexibility for adding both CCS and NACS, as long as drivers can count on a minimum of CCS.”

Guidehouse Insights principle research analyst Sam Abuelsamid added: “I’m guessing that lobbyists from GM and Ford are talking DOE to get those rules changed ASAP.”

Here are the charging station companies that have announced support for NACS, according to a newly released report from electrek:

• ABB
• Blink Charging
• Chargepoint
• EVgo
• FLO
• Tritium
• Wallbox

Tesla has 45,000 charging stations around the world, 12,000 of which are in the U.S. Tesla owners also receive a J1772 adapter with their car that allows them to access more than 53,000 other Level 2 stations in North America. 

The number of stations will likely increase now that Ford and GM are adding NACS natively to future vehicles, beginning in 2024-2025.

Edmunds executive director of insights Jessica Caldwell concluded: “Behind cost, consumers’ biggest concern when considering an EV purchase involves charging as it’s an overwhelming unknown to so many.”

She finished: “And for EVs to truly take off, there needs to be some standardization so consumers feel comfortable knowing they have ample charging locations to turn to and won’t be left stranded on the side of the road.”

Via The Cradle,

Speaking at a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “will not be bound” by any nuclear deal the US may potentially reach with Iran.

Iran has replaced Arab nations as the leading threat to Israel, and is now trying to “wipe out” the Arabs, the prime minister said, according to The Times of Israel.

“More than 90 percent of our security issues stem from Iran and her [proxies]. Our position is clear: Israel will not be bound by any deal with Iran and will continue to defend itself,” Netanyahu added.

The prime minister’s comments come as recent reports have suggested that Tehran and Washington are working to reach an ‘interim deal’ regarding the Iranian nuclear program, which would see Iran be granted some sanctions relief in exchange for it limiting its uranium enriching activities.

Both Iran and the US have officially denied that an interim agreement is on the table. However, Washington held indirect ‘proximity’ nuclear talks with Iran in Oman, anonymous sources told Axios recently, with Omani officials going between the two sides and passing messages.

According to the sources, the aim of the talks was to deescalate tensions as a basis for future talks on a new nuclear agreement between the parties.

Just two days ago, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said that a nuclear deal with the west is welcomed as long as the Islamic Republic’s nuclear infrastructure remains untouched.

“You may want to reach agreements in some fields. Nothing is wrong with [reaching] agreements, but the infrastructure must remain intact. It must not be harmed. These are the fruit of others’ endeavors,” Khamenei said following a visit to an exhibition showcasing Iran’s progress in various nuclear-related sectors. However, the Iranian leader added that government officials must “understand” where to place their trust.

In August 2022, Tehran and Washington got closer to reaching a deal than ever before after talks resumed following an EU-drafted proposal to revive the 2015 nuclear deal under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which former US president Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018.

Not long after, efforts stalled once again as the result of a coordinated Israeli pressure campaign aimed at preventing Washington from going through with an agreement. The revival of the deal ultimately failed, as western-sponsored civil unrest began to unfold on the streets of the Islamic Republic.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) recently closed a number of cases against Iran, ruling that traces of near-weapons grade uranium found in the country were only residual and not intended for use in making a nuclear bomb. Nonetheless, Israel has continued to threaten war against the Islamic Republic under the pretext of defending itself and ensuring peace.

Meanwhile, Israel has continued to ‘neither confirm nor deny’ the presence of its own nuclear arsenal. “We are working to stop Iran, and, on the other hand, we are making great efforts to expand the circle of peace. These things present us with great challenges, but also possibilities,” Netanyahu said during the meeting.

Lithium has become essential in recent years, primarily due to the boom in electric vehicles and other clean technologies that rely on lithium batteries.

The global lithium-ion battery market was valued at $52 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $194 billion in 2030.

In the infographic below, using data from the United States Geological Survey Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti explores the world’s largest lithium producing countries.

Australia and Chile: Dominating Global Lithium Supply

Australia and Chile stand out as the top producers of lithium, accounting for almost 77% of the global production in 2022.

*U.S. production data was withheld to avoid disclosing proprietary company data

Australia, the world’s leading producer, extracts lithium directly from hard rock mines, specifically the mineral spodumene.

Chile, along with Argentina, China, and other top producers, extracts lithium from brine.

Hard rock provides greater flexibility as lithium hosted in spodumene can be processed into either lithium hydroxide or lithium carbonate. It also offers faster processing and higher quality as spodumene typically contains higher lithium content.

Extracting lithium from brine, on the other hand, offers the advantage of lower production costs and a smaller impact on the environment. The following visual from Benchmark Minerals helps break down the carbon impact of different types of lithium extraction.

With that said, brine extraction can also face challenges related to water availability and environmental impacts on local ecosystems.

Historical Shifts in the Lithium Supply Chain

In the 1990s, the United States held the title of the largest lithium producer, producing over one-third of the global production in 1995.

However, Chile eventually overtook the U.S., experiencing a production boom in the Salar de Atacama, one of the world’s richest lithium brine deposits. Since then, Australia’s lithium production has also skyrocketed, now accounting for 47% of the world’s lithium production.

China, the world’s third-largest producer, not only focuses on developing domestic mines but has also strategically acquired approximately $5.6 billion worth of lithium assets in countries like Chile, Canada, and Australia over the past decade.

Furthermore, China currently hosts nearly 60% of the world’s lithium refining capacity for batteries, underlining its dominant position in the lithium supply chain.

Meeting Lithium Demand: The Need for New Production

As the world increases its production of batteries and electric vehicles, the demand for lithium is projected to soar.

In 2021, global lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) production sat at 540,000 tonnes.

By 2025, demand is expected to reach 1.5 million tonnes of LCE. By 2030, this number is estimated to exceed 3 million tonnes.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Germany has two major problems, an aging workforce and deindustrialization. Both will impact the EU for a long time…

Germany outlook from IMF via Bloomberg discussion below.

Adam Taggart, Founder & CEO, Wealthion, interviewed me this morning on a wide variety of topics. I will post the interview as soon as it’s available. 

One of Adam’s final questions was “What is the bull case for the Us stock market?” 

My answer was along the lines of “The US isn’t Germany.” 

The US Isn’t Germany

The EU lags the US in AI, and in technology in general. The EU is fearful of AI and wants to rein it in. 

What does Germany have other than aging infrastructure, SAP software, and diesel technology it is desperate to protect.

I’ve talked this before, but Microsoft, Google, Amazon. and Facebook could not exist in the EU because the EU would bust the corporations up in the name of increasing competition before the companies ever got big in the first place.

Europe’s Economic Engine Is Breaking Down

Bloomberg reports Europe’s Economic Engine Is Breaking Down

That is a gift article but it’s only valid for a week. Here are some key excerpts, subtitles in bold are mine.

Energy

Decades of flawed energy policy, the demise of combustion-engine cars and a sluggish transition to new technologies are converging to pose the most fundamental threat to the nation’s prosperity since reunification. But unlike in 1990, the political class lacks the leadership to tackle structural issues gnawing at the heart of the country’s competitiveness. 

The most pressing issue for Germany is getting its energy transition on track. Affordable power is a key precondition for industrial competitiveness, and even before the end of Russian gas supplies, Germany had some of the highest electricity costs in Europe. Failure to stabilize the situation could transform a trickle of manufacturers heading elsewhere into a stampede.

The bitter reality is that resources for generating that much clean power are limited in Germany by its relatively small coastline and lack of sun. In response, the country is looking to build a vast infrastructure to import hydrogen from the likes of Australia, Canada and Saudi Arabia — banking on technology that hasn’t been tested at this scale. 

Autos

Nowhere is Germany’s disappearing technological edge more obvious than in the auto sector. While brands like Porsche and BMW defined the combustion-engine era, Germany’s electric cars have struggled. BYD Co. overtook VW to become the best-selling car brand in China last quarter. Key to its push was an electric model that costs around a third of VW’s ID3, but offers greater range and connectivity with third-party applications.

Banking

Germany’s two biggest listed banks — Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG — have been mired in controversy for years, and while they’re on the mend, they’re still undersized compared to Wall Street peers. Their combined market capitalization is less than a tenth of JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s.

Digital Technology

In technology, Germany’s biggest player is SAP SE, which dates from the 1970s and makes complex software that helps companies manage their operations. Germany’s lack of investment is particularly acute in digital technology. Despite infrastructure that had it ranked 51st in the world for fixed-line Internet speeds, it had the fourth-lowest spending among OECD countries relative to the economy’s size.  

Aging Population

Fragmentation risks intensifying as the population ages, pitting comfortable pensioners against young people worried about their futures. The tensions have sparked disruptive protests, and authorities this week searched 15 properties across Germany in connection with an investigation against a group of climate activists.

Germany’s industrial base is already feeling the pinch of its demographic shift. Recent surveys have found 50% of firms cut output due to staffing problems, costing the economy as much as $85 billion per year. 

In a recent report, the OECD put the scale of the challenges in stark terms: “No major industrialized economy has ever had the very basis of its competitiveness and resilience so systematically challenged by changing social, environmental and regulatory pressures.”

Germany’s Population

There’s much more in the Bloomberg report. Inquiring minds will want to give that free link a closer look. 

Of note, Germany is dependent on China for German car exports. That pressure is about to reverse although Germany has a huge trade deficit with China already. 

Not Pretty Anywhere

It’s not pretty anywhere, as I mentioned to Adam. 

Compared to Germany, the US has far more bright spots. From a stock market perspective, however, those assets are hugely overpriced.

Importantly, the US will not decouple from the global economy in 2023 anymore than China did in 2008 or 2020. 

Inflation pressures from Biden’s energy policies, deglobalization, and decarbonization will prevent the Fed from stepping on the gas when the next US recession starts. 

Recession When?

The EU defines recession differently than the EU. The EU goes by the adage of two consecutive quarters of declining GDP.

By that measure, the EU is in recession now. The Guardian reports  Eurozone sinks into recession as cost of living crisis takes toll

The eurozone slipped into recession in the first three months of the year, after official figures were revised to show the bloc’s economy shrank as the rising cost of living weighed on consumer spending.

Figures from Eurostat, the EU’s statistical agency, showed gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.1% in the first quarter of 2023 and the final three months of 2022 after revisions to earlier estimates. A technical recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth.

I don’t think much of that recession definition, and it misses the 2020 Covid recession that was only 2 months long.

Gross Domestic Income GDI Suggests the US Is in Recession Right Now

There are conflicting signals in the US. GDP and GDI are supposed to measure the same thing but in two different ways. 

They don’t. But after enough revisions they will.

For discussion, please see Gross Domestic Income GDI Suggests the US Is in Recession Right Now

*  *  *

In case you missed it, Big Changes and Improvements Coming Up at MishTalk Next Week

Cocoa prices have soared 44% over the last nine months to seven-year highs as the global cocoa bean deficit worsens for the second consecutive year. 

“The cocoa market has experienced a remarkable surge in prices … This season marks the second consecutive deficit, with cocoa ending stocks expected to dwindle to unusually low levels,” S&P Global Commodity Insights’ Principal Research Analyst Sergey Chetvertakov told CNBC via email. 

Cocoa prices in New York surged more than 3% to $3,253 per metric ton — the highest since May 2016. The commodity last traded at $3,182 in the late US cash session on Tuesday. 

Chetvertakov said the El Nino weather phenomenon might worsen the global supply shortage because less rain is expected across West Africa, where cocoa is primarily grown. About 60% of the world’s cocoa production is based in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. He warned prices could reach as high as $3,600 later this year. 

He warned, “Consumers should brace themselves for the likelihood of higher chocolate prices,” adding chocolate producers are raising prices due to all-around higher costs.

Nick Gentile, a partner at NickJen Capital Management, told Bloomberg that chocolate producers usually have 11 months of physical cover on New York and London markets, though the future ratio only covers about five months. 

Gentile said the price increases are a combination of some fund buying and some manufacturers just throwing a towel in and doing some buying. He added, “The cocoa market knows that the manufacturers are underbought and need to buy.” 

With cocoa consumption at record highs in some Western countries, a worsening global bean deficit will only support higher prices. 

Meanwhile, sugar prices hit decade highs on global shortage fears in April. And robusta coffee prices hit a record high days ago on supply fears. 

There are just some grocery store aisles where inflation looks exceptionally sticky. 

Authored by Nick Corbishley via NakedCapitalism.com,

For the moment, it is not entirely clear why Godwin Emefiele has been removed from his post and detained by Nigeria’s secret police, but there are a whole slew of possible reasons. 

Something rather out of the ordinary occurred in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and largest economy, this past weekend: the (now former) Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, was suspended from office by the country’s newly elected President Bola Tinubuand. Hours later, Emefiele — who had been at the helm of the CBN for nine years, during which time the Nigerian currency lost 65% of its value and inflation almost tripled — was taken into custody by Nigeria’s secret police, the State Security Service (SSS).

Governors of central banks, which are generally independent authorities, are rarely suspended from their posts, and they are hardly ever arrested. For the moment, it is not entirely clear why Emefiele has been detained but there are a whole slew of possible reasons. The arrest follows a months-long investigation into his office by the SSS, which tried unsuccessfully to arrest him in December on allegations of “financing terrorism, fraudulent activities, and economic crimes of national security dimension.”

All-Out War on Cash

Those “economic crimes of national security dimension” presumably now include waging an all-out war on cash, with dire consequences for Nigeria’s already embattled economy. Between January and February, the CBN withdraw all high-denomination notes from circulation and failed to replace them with the newly designed notes it had promised, triggering a cash crunch. The central bank also placed stringent limits on the daily cash withdrawals of anyone who could access cash. As with India’s brush with demonetisation in 2016, the result was unmitigated chaos and economic pain — in a country where 63% of the population was already poor and 33% unemployed.

In March, the central bank finally paused the cash swap program until the end of the year, but only at the dogged insistence of Nigeria’s Supreme Court. By then, the lives, jobs and businesses of untold numbers of people had been upended. Inflation soared to an almost 18-year high. Preliminary data showed that economic growth for the first quarter of 2023 came in more than one percentage point lower than in the previous quarter, which Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics attributed to the “adverse effects of the cash crunch.”

What’s more, irreparable damage was done to public trust in the country’s central bank and banking system, which is ironic given that lack of trust is one of the biggest obstacles to public adoption of the country’s floundering central bank digital currency (CBDC), the e-Naira. The online newspaper Premium Times called for the arrest and prosecution of Emefiele, arguing that the cash withdrawal limits the CBN had imposed were an infringement on people’s basic rights:

“[M]ost have had to live with a frightening range of infringements since the banknotes swap policy came into effect. These have ranged from the economic (loss of earnings platforms across the economy’s informal sector), through the emotional (having to beg for cash from friends, family, neighbours and strangers to meet basic needs) to the conceptual (just struggling to make sense of the policy’s design, implementation and expected outcomes).”

According to the central bank and Buhari government, these infringements were a price well worth paying in order to achieve the policy’s ostensible aims (bringing more cash into the formal economy, curbing money laundering and terrorism financing, preventing vote buying in the upcoming general election, increasing tax revenues, and advancing the country’s floundering CBDC). Emefiele hailed the cash swap as a success. For Nigeria’s Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed, the “only sore point [wa]s the pain it has caused to citizens.”

Among its laundry list of reasons for pursuing demonetisation, published in October, the CBN said the redesign of the currency would “help deepen our drive to entrench a cashless economy as it will be complemented by increased minting of our eNaira.” Yet most Nigerians had no chance of using the eNaira since they do not own a smart phone or have access to the Internet. Of Nigeria’s approximate population of 220 million, between 25 million and 40 million people actually have a smart phone. More than half of the population is unbanked.

In other words, the overwhelming majority of Nigerians had no possible means of using digital payment methods even if they had wanted to. As more than half of the cash was drained from the economy, they had no means of transacting. Many of them took to the streets to protest. Banks were vandalised; some were even burnt to the ground. At the height of the protests, in mid-February, a coalition of civil society groups demanded that the CBN issue the new notes and end the suffering of millions of Nigerians — a demand that was rejected by the central bank and the Buhari government.

IMF: “Disappointingly Low” Public Adoption of eNaira

Most of the people who have been able to download the eNaira app and have chosen to do so, have not bothered to use it. In a recent working paper, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — which played a key role in the CBDC’s development and roll-out — described the Nigerian public’s adoption of the CBDC as “disapppointingly low,” with fewer than 2% of the downloaded eNaira wallets actually being used:

The average number of eNaira transactions since its inception amounts to about 14,000 per
week—only 1.5 percent of the number of wallets out there. This means that 98.5 percent of wallets, for any given week, have not been used even once. The average value of eNaira transaction[s] has been 923 million naira per week—0.0018 percent of the average amount of M3 during this period. The average value per one transaction has been 60,000 naira.

There are also political reasons for Emefiele’s removal from office and subsequent arrest. The (now-former) central banker tried to transition into party politics last year by running for the presidential ticket of the ruling All Progressive Congress. He had some powerful backers. As NC reader Negrodamus noted in a comment to a previous article of mine, when that bid failed, Emefiele used the country’s printing presses to try to prevent the primary victor, Tinubu, from winning the election:

[The] CBN announced the deadline for the currency swap 14 days [before] a national election? Odd timing. Why?

The CBN governor contested & lost in the primary that produced the eventual winner-Tinubu. It was thought that Tinubu’s entire machinery was based on money. So the governor in cahoots with a cabal in the office of the presidency decided to turn off the tap in a bid to deny him the Presidency by withdrawing currency from the economy (you simply cannot make this up). Take note, the policy was announced after the primaries and before the general elections.

Unfortunately this did not work for the CBN governor & co and now the courts have forced him to backtrack as there is a new president-elect and due to huge public outcry. The current presidency cabal seeing the plot has failed has abandoned Emeifele, the CBN governor.

To what extent CBN’s disastrous cash swap program was driven by Emefiele’s political ambitions is impossible to discern. Clearly those ambitions played an important role — and now that his political rival, Tibunu, is in power, he could be about to pay a very high price.

A Wall of Public Resistance

But it is also true that Nigeria’s e-Naira predated the CBN’s demonetisation program by well over a year. And the fact that it is the world’s first CBDC to be launched by a largish economy makes its success (or otherwise) symbolically important. By this time last year, it was clear that the eNaira was floundering and in desperate need of a jolt. And what better way than by hobbling the country’s most important payment method, cash?

Indeed, the CBN has been disarmingly candid about its desire to do away with cash. In October, when the demonetisation program was first unveiled, Emefiele himself said: “The destination, as far as I am concerned, is to achieve a 100 percent cashless economy in Nigeria”.

That hasn’t happened. Cash is still King in Nigeria. Even after all that has happened, most Nigerians cannot or do not want to use the eNaira. CBDCs may be all the rage among central bankers, but as long as they offer little in the way of public benefit while posing huge risks to privacy, anonymity and other basic freedoms, they are unlikely to gain traction in Africa or elsewhere. And that should perhaps offer us all a slither of hope. As the Financial Times noted in March, central banks’ digital currency plans are facing a wall of public resistance. And that wall is gradually growing higher.

That doesn’t mean that the eNaira can be declared DOA just yet. The CBN’s cash-less policy predated Emefiele’s appointment as governor, and it is yet to be seen what the new management will do with Nigeria’s half-born CBDC. The CBDC may have been a total flop so far but the IMF still sees room for potential, especially now that the CBN is moving to the second phase of the eNaira’s incremental roll-out: expanding its coverage to (1) people without bank accounts (but with mobile phones) and (2) those without internet access, largely by offering eNaira to the country’s legions of poor through social cash transfer programs.

But the mere fact that the eNaira has had such an underwhelming impact in its first year and a half of existence while its main architect, Godwin Emefiele, is now under arrest, might give other central banks in Africa pause before launching their own CBDCs. Just over a week ago, the central bank of East Africa’s largest economy, Kenya, which is widely viewed as a pioneer in the “mobile money” space, announced that it did not consider launching a CBDC a “compelling priority” after conducting a public consultation on the matter. It also mentioned the “challenges” that have hampered other central banks’ efforts to implement CBDCs. From Reuters:

“On the global stage, the allure of CBDCs is fading,” the bank said in a statement. “Implementation of a CBDC in Kenya may not be a compelling priority in the short to medium term.”

Central banks that had rushed to issue the currencies were now facing challenges that are hampering implementation, it said, adding that other problems have also arisen.

Given the role Africa has long played as a testing ground for biometric ID technologies, mobile money initiatives and now CBDCs, this is a welcome development.

President Alexander Lukashenko said Tuesday he won’t hesitate to use Russian tactical nuclear weapons which are soon to be stationed on Belarusian soil if his country faces “an aggression”. 

“God forbid I have to make a decision to use those weapons today, but there would be no hesitation if we face an aggression,” he said.

Just last week, Russia’s President Putin told his Belarusian counterpart at a meeting Sochi that tactical nuclear weapons will be deployed in Belarus after hosting facilities are ready on July 7-8. Putin had unveiled plans to send nukes there in March. The weapons will be under Russian military control but hosted at Belarusian bases.

While Lukashenko is known for this kind of maximalist and jingoistic rhetoric, often in reaction to developments out of NATO concerning new weapons systems to Ukraine, the timing of these new willingness to “make a decision” remarks is notable. 

The threat comes the same day The Wall Street Journal reported the White House is set to transfer depleted uranium shells to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion began. 

Internal administration debate over the controversial munitions has been ongoing for several months, but an admin official quoted in WSJ says at this point there are “no major obstacles” to sending it, which will be used to equip M1 Abrams tanks provided by Washington. 

As we recounted earlier, when the UK previously announced its authorization for depleted uranium for Challenger 2 main battle tanks, that’s when President Putin first said he would station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Putin had justified the move toward nuclear escalation very specifically in response to London’s decision at the time. But Washington has of course downplayed and rejected the association of depleted uranium shells with ‘nuclear weapons’.

Regardless, as Lukashenko’s comments show, rhetoric regarding potential nuclear escalation continues to soar, at a very dangerous moment the world is already 90 seconds to midnight.

Authored by Tsvetana Parskova via OilPrice.com,

The European Union could move to ban imports of Russia’s pipeline gas by the end of this year if it puts preliminary measures in place, Walter Boltz, energy advisor to the Austrian government, has told Independent Commodity Intelligence Services (ICIS).  

The EU has seen increased recognition that it could cope without the remaining Russian pipeline gas it gets, but some countries still receiving natural gas via pipeline, most notably Hungary, could seek exemptions or not agree to an EU ban, according to Boltz.

Gazprom has stopped publishing numbers on its gas deliveries to Europe. The Russian giant has seen exports to Europe decline since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year, as Russia cut off gas supplies to a number of countries in Europe.

Russia halted gas supply to Poland, Bulgaria, and Finland in April and May 2022, slashed gas deliveries via Nord Stream to Germany in June, then cut off Nord Stream supply in early September, weeks before the still mysterious sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea at the end of September. 

Russia still sends some gas via pipelines to Europe via one transit route through Ukraine, and via TurkStream.

Ukraine itself could have a strong case for lobbying the EU to ban Russian pipeline gas imports.

“If you think that Russia is making $15-$25bn annually from gas sales and Ukraine only $800m in transit, it would make every sense in the world for Ukraine to forego the transit and stop Russia from getting this money,” Boltz told ICIS.

Still, the EU is unlikely to agree to an idea to ban gas imports from the pipelines from Russia, where Moscow has already cut off the gas supply to Europe, EU diplomats told POLITICO last month. Analysts and EU officials told POLITICO there is no consensus to support the idea of banning the resumption of Russian gas flows.

Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Cradle,

In less than a decade, China’s BRI has fundamentally transformed global geopolitics. It is already far too late for the west to compete…

It is important to recognize that the US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine is simultaneously a war designed to interrupt the progress of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

As we approach the 10th anniversary of the BRI, to be marked by the third Belt and Road Forum later this year in Beijing, it is clear the original Silk Road Economic Belt – announced by President Xi Jinping in Astana, Kazakhstan, in September 2013 – has traveled a long way.

By January this year, 151 nations had already signed up to the BRI: No less than 75 percent of the world’s population that represents more than half of the global GDP. Even an Atlanticist outfit such as the London-based Center for Economic and Business Research admits that the BRI may increase global GDP by a whopping $7.1 trillion a year by 2040, dispensing “widespread” benefits.

Included in the Chinese Constitution since 2018, BRI constitutes the de facto overarching Chinese foreign policy framework all the way to 2049, marking the centenary of the People’s Republic of China.

The BRI advances along several overland connectivity corridors – from the Trans-Siberian to the “middle corridor” along Iran and Turkiye and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) all the way to the Arabian Sea. Meanwhile, on the waterways front, the Maritime Silk Road offers a parallel network from southeast China to the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Swahili Coast, and the Mediterranean Sea.

All that is mirrored by the Russian-driven Northern Sea Route, connecting the eastern and western sides of the Arctic, and reducing to and fro sailing time from Europe to Asia from one month to less than two weeks.

Such a massive Make Trade Not War project, centered on connectivity, infrastructure building, sustainable development, and diplomatic acumen – focusing on the Global South – could not but be interpreted by western elites as a supreme geopolitical and geoeconomic threat.

And that’s why every geopolitical turbulence across the chessboard is directly or indirectly linked to BRI. Including Ukraine.

“A brand new choice”

At the Lanting Forum in Shanghai last month, Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang was at ease presenting to a select foreign audience the key outlines of “modernization, the Chinese way” and how it can be applied across the Global South.

For their part, Global South experts had a chance to dwell on the motives underneath the collective west’s constant “threat” paranoia. The bottom line is that for the US and its vassal allies, it is anathema that Beijing – based on its own success – is offering an alternative development model compared to the sole product on the market since 1945.

Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, currently the new president of the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB) – the BRICS bank – explained to the forum how neoliberalism was forced onto Latin America as a false path towards economic success. The Chinese model, on the other hand, as she stressed, now offers a “brand new choice,” which respects national peculiarities.

Zhou Qiangwu, the Chinese vice president of NDB, expects that this will push the IMF and the World Bank to give the Global South more say in their decision-making as part of new “governance solutions.”

Yet that’s unlikely to happen because the US and its vassals are not mentally prepared to get rid of their baggage of centuries-old prejudice and sit down at the same table with Global South representatives and accept them as equals as well as qualified stakeholders.

The Global South though, waits for no one. Round tables are already following each other at dizzying speed. A key case was the May 18-19 China-Central Asia summit in the former imperial capital, Xi’an, when President Xi met with the presidents of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – the five former USSR republics in the Heartland.

That followed Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting the same five “stans” in Moscow on the extremely significant 9 May, Victory Day.

Diplomatically, that suggests an already evolving 5+2 axis uniting Russia, China, and the five stans operating via their own secretariat in a slightly different manner from BRI, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).

And why is that? Because of a problem that will be afflicting all of these new multilateral Global South-led organizations: Internal frictions.

And that brings us to the presence of India inside the SCO, an organization that privileges consensus in every decision.

That’s a huge issue when in contrast with the intractable India-Pakistan conflict, and even more sensitive when it comes to New Delhi’s wobbling stance regarding Quad and AUKUS. At least the Indians have not totally submitted to NATO in its hybrid war against Russia-China and its dream of dictating terms in the Indo-Pacific.

“A large-scale Eurasian partnership”

Xi and Putin have fully understood the strategic energy stakes: Increased shipments of Russian oil and gas to China equal way more transit across the Heartland. So a fully integrated strategy is a must. And it will have to be integrated at the level of BRI and EAEU interaction, even if there may be a “gap” inside the SCO.

Practical examples include accelerating the construction of the ultra-strategic Xinjiang-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway, which has been delayed for years: That will boost further connectivity with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

In parallel, CPEC will be extended to Afghanistan: That was finally decided on during an AfPak-China ministerial meeting in Islamabad on 5 May. Although a very thorny dossier still remains: How to deal with, cajole, and satisfy the Taliban leadership in Kabul.

Xi and the Heartland leaders in Xi’an forcefully committed to preventing “foreign interference” and proverbial color revolution attempts. These are all engineered to disturb BRI.

Now compare it with the G7 meeting in Hiroshima – which was yet another thinly disguised exercise about  “containing” China. The Hiroshima communiqué, issued on May 20, a day after Xi and Central Asia in Xi’an, was heavy on “de-risking” – the new Western mantra that replaces “decoupling.”

The EU had already telegraphed the move via notorious European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: Deception rules, because the concept that really matters, “economic coercion,” persists. Yet no serious Global South player thinks he’s being “coerced” to join BRI.

Comic relief was offered via the G7 committing to raise a whopping $600 billion in funding to build “quality infrastructure” via a so-called Global Infrastructure Investment Partnership: Call it the white man’s burden answer to BRI.

The fact remains that no one – from the western-monikered “Indo-Pacific” to ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) – is demonstrating any sign of being “coerced” by China, not to mention showing any interest in ditching or antagonizing a wealth of trade and connectivity prospects.

At the EAEU summit in Moscow in late May, it was up to Putin to cut to the chase by emphasizing Russia’s active cooperation with BRICS, SCO, ASEAN, GCC, and multilateral organizations in Africa and Latin America.

Putin explicitly referred to “building new sustainable logistics chains” and developing the key connection between the EAEU and the International North-South Transportation Corridor (INTSC).

It gets better. He also emphasized working with China to “link the integration processes” of the EAEU and BRI, thus “implementing the large-scale idea of building a large-scale Eurasian partnership.”

It’s all here: Everything that makes Atlanticist elites howl in desperation. Old fox Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has seen it all since his USSR days, summed it up thus: Combining integration efforts – EAEU, SCO, BRICS – “will contribute to the creation of the largest coalition of states.”

And he came up with the money quote that will surely reverberate all across the Global South: “If we lose time – we will never make up for it. The one who runs faster now will be in the vanguard for a couple of decades.”

The jade tiger pounces

All that brings us to Shangri-La, East Asia’s premier dialogue platform in Singapore, this past weekend.

The real highlight was State Councilor and Defense Minister General Li Shangfu explaining China’s “New Security Initiative” in detail.

Li stressed the concept of “common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security.” Remember: That’s exactly what Moscow was proposing to Washington in December 2021, which was met with a non-response response.

He noted that China is “ready to work with all parties” to strengthen the awareness of an “Asia-Pacific community with a shared future” (Note: Asia-Pacific is the denomination everyone in the region understands, not “Indo-Pacific”).

And then he got to the nitty-gritty: Taiwan is China’s Taiwan. And how to solve the Taiwan question is the Chinese people’s business. The message could not be more straightforward:

“If anyone dares to split Taiwan from China, the Chinese military will resolutely safeguard China’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity without any hesitation, at all cost, and not fearing any opponent.”

The Chinese delegation at the Shangri-La totally dismissed the “so-called ‘Indo-Pacific strategy’” as a tawdry Hegemon rant.

What Shangri-La unveiled was, in fact, Beijing’s clear, concise response to all those dismissals of BRI, all that carping about “debt trap” and “economic coercion,” all that “de-risking” rhetoric, and all those mounting intimations of false flags in Taiwan leading to the “real” war that the neocons in charge of US foreign policy dream about.

Obviously, intellectually shallow Beltway types won’t get the message. Especially because Li Shangfu was as polished as a jade tiger – elegantly pouncing over an avalanche of lies. You wanna mess with us? We’re ready. The barbarians predictably will keep rattling at the gate. The jade tiger awaits.

Covid sparked beef and pork shortages, leaving shelves at Walmart stores bare throughout the US. Government-forced shutdowns and Covid outbreaks forced dozens of meatpackers across the US to shut down, reducing meat supplies reaching Walmart and other retailers. To safeguard against future supply disruptions, Walmart is bolstering its supply chain by building its own meatpacking facility in America’s Heartland. 

“Today, we’re excited to share how Walmart is furthering that commitment by announcing plans for our first owned and operated case-ready beef facility, opening in 2025,” a Walmart press release read. 

The new facility will be constructed later this year in Olathe, Kansas, about 25 miles southwest of Kansas City. It’s “an important milestone for Walmart as we continue to build a more resilient supply chain and identify ways to increase access to high-quality Angus beef for our customers,” America’s largest retailer said. 

According to Bloomberg, Walmart’s move comes “as the Biden Administration pushes for more competition in the meat sector, where just four companies control about 85% of US beef-processing capacity.” 

Once opened, the new meatpacking plant will package and distribute beef from Sustainable Beef LLC in North Platte, Nebraska, to serve stores across the Midwest. 

Walmart wants to avoid severe supply chain challenges faced during Covid years, which resulted in some stores running out of beef and pork products. 

Even though 600 jobs will be created at the new facility in Olathe, we suspect the future of meatpacking plants will involve a great deal of automation.