Shell’s LNG bunkering volumes jump in 2024

Energy News BeatLNG bunkering

“This was achieved with 1000 bunkering operations across 26 bunkering locations in 12 countries, by 12 bunker barges,” Dexter Belmar, Shell’s head of global downstream LNG said in a LinkedIn post on Thursday.

Shell worked with Carnival, CMA CGM, Eastern Pacific Shipping, K Line, Northern Lights JV, Seaboard Marine, ZIM, and others on the LNG bunkering operations.

Belmar also said that Shell has started delivering “mass balanced bio-LNG” to customers in 2024.

Shell’s newest LNG outlook shows that a growing order book of LNG-powered vessels will see demand from this market rise to more than 16 million tonnes a year by 2030, up 60 percent from the previous forecast.

“LNG is becoming a cost-effective fuel for shipping and road transport, bringing down emissions today and offering pathways to incorporate lower-carbon sources such as bio-LNG or synthetic LNG,” Shell said.

DNV’s data recently showed that orders for LNG-powered vessels jumped 103 percent to 264 ships last year.

The orders for 264 LNG-powered ships compare to 130 LNG-powered vessels in 2023 and 222 LNG-powered vessels in 2022.

These statistics do not include dual-fuel LNG carriers or smaller inland vessels.

Moreover, the number of LNG bunkering vessels in operation grew from 52 to 64 over the last year.

Last month, DNV added 33 LNG-powered ships, all container vessels, to its Alternative Fuels Insight platform.

The classification society also said that eight orders were placed for LNG bunkering vessels in February, representing a 50 percent expansion of the LNG bunkering vessel orderbook.

Source: Lngprime.com

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It’s Again the Hefty Up-Revisions that Heat PPI Inflation: Been Happening Month after Month

Energy News BeatPPI

January was up-revised to worst increase since August 2023, PPI inflation doubling in 12 months. February unchanged, waiting for up-revision.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

It happened again. We’ve been discussing this issue here for many months: It’s the up-revisions of the prior months that are largely driving the PPI higher, and that was the case today too.

Today’s Producer Price Index for February once again included up-revisions of the data for the prior month, driven by a big up-revision for the services PPI that doubled the month-to-month increase, which flipped the previously reported year-over-year “cooling” in January to “continued heating” in January.

Overall PPI up-revisions: The month-to-month increase of the PPI for January was revised up by 21 basis points, to +0.61% (+7.6% annualized), the biggest increase since August 2023, from the previously reported +0.40% (+4.9% annualized).

The year-over-year increase of the PPI for January was revised up by 19 basis points, to +3.70%, the biggest increase since February 2023, from the previously reported +3.51%.

Core PPI up-revisions: The month-to-month increase of the “core” PPI for January was revised up by 23 basis points, to +0.51% (+6.3% annualized), the biggest increase since June 2024, from the previously reported +0.28% (+3.4% annualized).

The year-over-year increase of the core PPI for January was revised up by 22 basis points, to +3.83%, the biggest increase since February 2023, from the previously reported +3.61%. This up-revision to +3.83% flipped the January data point from being lower (cooling) than December (3.72%) to being higher (re-heating) than December.

Services PPI up-revisions: The month-to-month increase of the services PPI for January was revised up by 29 basis points, nearly doubling it, to +0.61% (+7.6% annualized), the biggest increase since June 2024, from the previously reported +0.32% (+3.9% annualized).

Services account for 67.5% of the overall PPI. It’s these big up-revisions in services that trigger the up-revisions in the core PPI and the overall PPI.

The year-over-year increase of the services PPI for January was revised up by 27 basis points, to +4.41%, the worst increase in two years, from the previously reported +4.14%. This up-revision to +4.41% flipped the January data point from being lower than December (+4.24%) to being higher than December.

To illustrate the impact of the revisions, here is the chart of the year-over-year services PPI through January with the revised data as reported today (red) and originally reported data (blue). January flipped from cooling (blue) to heating (red). Since these types of up-revisions have been happing nearly every month since PPI inflation began reheating last summer, we see a good chance that today’s February data (more in a moment) will be up-revised too.

These up-revisions are a substantial part of what drives the PPI higher, but they don’t show up in the headlines reporting on the month-to-month data.

The PPI for February.

The overall PPI for February (to be upwardly revised next month?) was essentially unchanged from the upwardly revised January, which had been the biggest increase since August 2023.

This unchanged February caused the year-over-year increase to decelerate to +3.2% from the upwardly revised increase in January of 3.7%.

So far, powered by the up-revisions, it’s a trend of zig-zagging higher from the low point of near 0% in June 2023.

The PPI tracks inflation in goods and services that companies buy and whose higher costs they ultimately try to pass on to their customers.

Energy prices dropped in February (-1.2% month-to-month), after several month-to-month increases. Gasoline prices dropped by 4.7% at the wholesale level. Year-over-year the energy PPI fell by 3.7%.

Food prices jumped by 1.7% in February from January, after the 1.0% jump in January. The avian flu’s impact on egg production played a role, as egg prices jumped 54%. Year-over-year, food prices at the wholesale level increased by 5.9%.

Without food & energy: “Core” PPI for February (to be upwardly revised next month?) declined by 0.6% in February from the upwardly revised January, which had been the biggest increase since June 2024.

Year-over-year, core PPI rose by 3.45%, a deceleration from the upwardly revised January reading.

The services PPI, which accounts for 67.5% of the overall PPI but excludes energy services, declined by 0.16% in February from the upwardly revised January.

The month-to-month decline was driven by margins for trade services, which dropped by 1.0% (the trade PPI tracks changes in margins received by wholesalers and retailers). Without trade, transportation, and warehousing, services rose by 0.2% in February from January.

Year-over-year, services PPI rose by 3.9%, a deceleration from the upwardly revised January reading that flipped from the previously reported decline to the hottest increase since January 2023 (see first chart above with the blue and red lines):

The “core goods” PPI was revised up by only 4 basis points for January (to +0.17% from +0.13%). But in February, it jumped by 0.35% (+4.3% annualized), the biggest increase since January 2023.

Year-over-year, it rose by 2.1%, in the same 2%-plus range of increases for the eighth month in a row. The PPI for “core goods” covers goods that companies buy but excludes food and energy products.

This is where tariffs would show up if they get passed on this far. Last time, there was a little bump in early to mid-2018, even though the final tariffs weren’t implemented until later in 2018 (blue box).

But companies could not pass on the price increases overall to consumers, and consumer price inflation for durable goods, where tariffs would have hit the most, remained negative (in deflation) throughout that time (PCE price index charts for durable goods and all goods, and article). This time, it’s different?

Source: Wolfstreet.com

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U.S. LNG Exports are Trump’s Trade Right Sizing Ace in his pocket

Energy News Beat

President Trump has the right ideas and the right people in place to right size the trade imbalances, debt, and fiscal responsibility. What many people do not understand is why tariffs, if properly managed, can bring prosperity and wealth to Americans.

The Trump administration is looking at several things. The trade balances, the Treasury balance sheet, and the Fed. Some of his roadblocks are the EU, the UK, China, and Mexico. In the EU, you do not have Ram, Ford, GM, or other manufactured cars. Why? Because they already have trade blocks or tariffs in place. The products that they want from America are on the short list, and LNG, refined petroleum products, gasoline, and jet fuel should be at the top of the list. Manufactured products should be there, but it will take years to get the volume and demand up.

That leaves LNG as the king of the trade deficit offsetting product. But how much can we offset? That is a critical and challenging question. To guarantee energy security in long-term contracts, our shipping, shipbuilding, steel, and manufacturing must be looked at. President Trump has the new Shipyard office in the White House to gain investors and rebuild our ship and tanker business. We also need to look at putting in a recycling yard for older tankers to be used in building the new tankers flagged under the U.S. for long-term contracting. This would help the steel industry by having a source of material suitable for building quicker. Without a fleet of LNG tankers, we will be subject to sanctions from other countries and at the whim of other leaders.

When looking at the trade balances, let’s see how we stand worldwide.

The U.S. faces its most enormous goods deficits with China, the EU, Mexico, Vietnam, and increasingly, Switzerland and Canada, amid escalating trade disputes. For real-time precision, ongoing trade policy shifts (e.g., tariff exemptions or escalations) could alter February and March 2025 data, but these are not yet available. Posts on X align with this, citing deficits like $295 billion with China for 2024, though they often oversimplify or exaggerate for political effect.

In 2024, the full-year Trade Deficit by country stacked up by the following:
  • China: -$295.4 billion
    • Largest U.S. trade deficit, though down from its 2018 peak of $418 billion due to tariffs and supply chain shifts.
  • European Union (27 countries): -$235.6 billion
    • Includes significant deficits with Germany (-$84.8 billion) and Ireland (-$86.7 billion).
  • Mexico: -$171.8 billion
    • A record high for this bilateral relationship, driven by imports of vehicles and parts.
  • Vietnam: -$123.5 billion
    • The fourth-largest deficit, reflecting increased manufacturing shifts from China.
  • Ireland: -$86.7 billion
    • Notable for pharmaceuticals and tech goods.
  • Germany: -$84.8 billion
    • Driven by auto parts, vehicles, and machinery.
  • Taiwan: -$73.9 billion
    • Surge linked to electronics and semiconductor supply chains.
  • Japan: -$68.5 billion
    • Primarily vehicles and machinery.
  • Canada: -$63.3 billion
    • Below its 2022 peak of -$78 billion, with energy and autos as key imports.
  • South Korea: -$66.0 billion
    • Electronics and vehicles dominate imports.

Other notable deficits from 2024 include:

  • India: -$45.7 billion
  • Italy: -$44.0 billion
  • Thailand: -$45.6 billion
  • Switzerland: -$38.5 billion
  • Malaysia: -$24.8 billion

The U.S. also had trade surpluses with some countries in 2024, such as:

  • Netherlands: +$55.5 billion
  • South and Central America: +$47.3 billion
  • Hong Kong: +$21.9 billion
  • Australia: +$17.9 billion

Canada, in my opinion, should be treated differently as we need the Canadian heavy oil sands for our refineries, and I would rather trade with Canada than Venezuela, Iraq, or Iran. It is also important to note that California is a national security threat to the United States as it imports 60% plus of its oil from sanctioned or not-the-best trading partners in the country.

So in 2024, the estimated total trade imbalance is about $1.2 trillion. We do not have that amount available in trade in LNG capacity, so let’s see how much we have to work with. And in 2024, the U.S. LNG Exports are estimated to be $26 billion.

Grok on X gave me a good formula at:

  • Price Estimation: Historical data from EIA and Reuters suggest an average export price of around $5-$7 per mmBtu when including liquefaction and shipping costs (higher than Henry Hub prices due to added expenses). Assuming an average of $6 per mmBtu for 2024 (accounting for the reported price drop and recovery), and knowing 1 Bcf = 1,000 mmBtu, the daily value can be estimated.
  • Daily Value: 12 Bcf/d × $6/mmBtu × 1,000 mmBtu/Bcf = $72 million per day.
  • Annual Value: $72 million/day × 365 days = approximately $26.28 billion.

While $26.8 billion is not a small number, it can be dramatically increased with the focus that this White House is placing on getting the trade barriers right-sided. President Trump will need to look at products to export to make up the huge deficit out there, and as a United States legal citizen, I will pay more for a product made in the United States, knowing it will support legal US citizens.

Some of the other products that could be low-hanging fruit would be the feedstocks, petrochemicals, and downstream products, and I would recommend looking at exporting our modular nuclear reactors. Russia is already way ahead of us by exporting nuclear power plant projects, and it is a great way to get long-term contracts and build business relationships.

I am working on a series of articles for The Energy News Beat Substack for our paid subscribers and will post these out in a series of steps for the finance and energy sectors.

We appreciate all our subscribers and have an absolute blast working in the energy markets for you. A shout-out to Steve Reese over at Reese Energy Consulting for sponsoring the Daily Energy News Beat podcast. We need Reese Energy Consulting in the market to deliver the best U.S. natural gas and LNG exports worldwide. With the significant growth in our energy market, training is a huge issue right now and they have a great training division.

Reese Energy Consulting, Inc.

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Trump Tariffs Hit Refiners

Energy News Beat

Daily Standup Top Stories 

South Dakota Bans Using Eminent Domain For Carbon Dioxide Pipelines

South Dakota Governor Rhoden signed a bill banning eminent domain for carbon capture pipelines, protecting landowners’ property rights. ​Republican South Dakota Governor Larry Rhoden signed a bill Thursday banning the use of eminent domain for […]

Trump Tariffs Threaten U.S. Oil Refiners

President Trump’s new tariffs on energy imports from Canada and Mexico are expected to significantly impact US refiners, particularly those reliant on heavy crude. While Canadian oil imports are likely to continue despite tariffs, Mexican […]

U.S. LNG’s Kingmaker Status Has an Expiration Date

The U.S. transformed from an energy importer to the world’s top LNG exporter due to the shale revolution and fracking. Rising costs, environmental concerns, and potential shifts toward renewables pose challenges to long-term demand for […]

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India’s Coal Ministry is proposing a coal trading exchange to manage increased domestic coal production and facilitate competitive sales. This initiative aims to shift from a government-controlled sales model to a “many-to-many” platform for efficient […]

Drewry: more than half of steam LNG carriers to be scrapped by 2030

ENB Pub Note: This will be a vast opportunity zone for the U.S. shipbuilding business if it can get organized. President Trump is on task with the new shipbuilding office, and this needs to get […]

Highlights of the Podcast

00:00 – Intro

01:19 – South Dakota Bans Using Eminent Domain For Carbon Dioxide Pipelines

03:20 – Trump Tariffs Threaten U.S. Oil Refiners

06:25 – U.S. LNG’s Kingmaker Status Has an Expiration Date

09:45 – India Plans Coal Trading Exchange as Domestic Supply Soars

11:11 – Drewry: more than half of steam LNG carriers to be scrapped by 2030

13:07 – Markets Update

17:38 – Pioneer Natural CEO Scott Sheffield on Trump’s tariffs, impact on steel business and oil prices

23:12 – Outro


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Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.


Stuart Turley [00:00:10] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy Newsbeat podcast. My name’s Stu Turley, president and CEO of the Sandstone Group. Today is March 12th. And I mean, we have got some stories for you. Venezuela stops taking U .S. deportees after Trump orders Chevron out. That’s kind of a big deal. Strangling our economy. Report shows net zero hampers growth, doesn’t lower emissions. And on the front of that picture, you got a poor old Helga, whatever her name is there. She is a child that has been pampered and abused there. Let’s go to the next story here. Energy secretary to shatter Biden’s climate shackles, unleash US energy. Boom. We love Chris Wright. He is absolutely on fire. Chenier gets FERC OK for two more Corpus Christi LNG trains. Oil’s China imports could rise as the newest refinery begins trial runs. Germany’s new government is set to reshape its energy policies. This is following their announcements following that they want more nuclear weapons. So, boy, it’s going to be an interesting time in Germany.

Stuart Turley [00:01:26] So let’s start with Venezuela. Venezuela stops taking U .S. deportees after Trump orders Chevron out. Chevron’s joint ventures with Venezuela’s state oil company Petrola de Venezuela were producing approximately 135 ,000 barrels per day, according to the independent estimates and shipping data. This figure marked a significant increase over 2022 levels. By February 2025, posts on its reports indicated Chevron was producing around 220 ,000 to 235 ,000 barrels per day in Venezuela. That is from social media, but hey, it’s pretty cool. Chevron’s production targets were aimed higher, but Bloomberg says, will stop receiving deportees from the U .S. to President Trump’s, Donald Trump revoke Chevron’s license. Oops. You know, I can understand why President Trump is wanting to do that, but this is gonna raise a little bit of another issue and that is we need to import heavy oil and so we’re gonna have to look at how and who we’re importing the oil from. This comes on the heels of Scott Sheffield telling, I believe it was MSBC News, that the reason Pioneer sold out to Exxon was because they had very depleted inventory for available drilling sites. So that is a huge issue right there.

Stuart Turley [00:02:57] Let’s go to the next story here. Strangling our economy. Report shows net zero hampers growth, doesn’t lower emissions. A new report argues that net zero policies harm the economy, stifling growth, energy policy and productivity while failing failing to reduce global emissions. Cutting greenhouse gas emissions was going to save the planet at no cost. Turns out it’s an economy wrecker, which is more feature than bug than a bug for many climate alarmists. You have Greta Thornberg there on the picture of that. And she has absolutely been used by her parents and run around and paraded around. That poor kid is just messed up. That’s really sad. The results of the UK’s decarbonization efforts appears to erect economic growth, stalling living standards, high energy prices, and deindustrialization without denting rising global emissions,” he wrote last week in the Telegraph. Net zero is strangling our economy, says the headline over Pickering’s column, because the limiting the available electricity has stifled productivity. So this falls along with, I jokingly talked with Michael about this, and that is the Turley’s Law. The more that we invest in renewable wind, solar, and hydrogen, the more fossil fuels are used. So call it Turley’s Law if you want. Maybe we add a byline to Turley’s Law and is net zero equals deindustrialization. That could be another sideline there. So I’m just feeling sorry for the folks in the UK because you don’t have the Second amendment to get yourself out of this mess.

Stuart Turley [00:04:39] Let’s go to the next story here. Energy secretary to shatter Biden’s climate shackles unleashed the US energy boom. Chris Wright is again the right man for the right job and he is Chris Wright. So slam Biden’s climate policies, vowing that Trump will admin will prioritize energy, prosperity and scientific realism. He characterized the Biden administration’s manacle focus on the climate change as counterproductive and improvising ordinary people, pledging to take a radically different approach than his predecessor by unleashing U .S. and energy private sector. The previous administration’s climate policies are horrible. There are no winners in that world except the politicians and rapidly growing interest groups. The only interest groups that we’re concerned about with is the American people. Our focus is steadfast on the American people and our allies abroad. Chris Wright, I absolutely love that saying the only interest group that we are concerned about with is the American people. Oh, my goodness. That is refreshing. The Trump administration will treat climate change for what it is. a global physical phenomenon that’s a side effect of building the modern world. That’s an interesting way to put it. And I kind of agree with it. The Trump administration is moving forward and will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi -religious policies on climate change. And I think that this is gonna be something that we’re gonna see in the next few months and that is additional graft and greed and corruption that net zero that the climate policies have done and they’ve been done intentionally. Yesterday I released the seven P podcast. It was the podcast where George McMillan and I talked about how we got here and how we got here is by design since the 60s to turn this into the left plan to turn this into a communist regime and we almost failed. Hats off to Secretary Wright and I really applaud him. You have to understand how we got here, but yet more importantly, how we’re going to get out of this problem and I believe we’re on the right track.

Stuart Turley [00:07:08] Chenier gets the OK for two more Corpus Christi LNG trains. This is huge. FERC set its approval date at January 10th that it granted an application filed by Corpus Christi liquefaction and CCL mid -scale in March, 2023. Man, since March of 2023 to get an approval process done. Hey, way to go, Chris Wright. Clear off that desk. The applicants are authorized under section three of the NGA to site construct and operate the CCL mid -scale trains eight and nine project and described in condition. This is exciting. Uh, Shanir CEO Jeff Frusco recently commented that the company still expects to make final investment decisions to build two more mid -scale trains at Corpus that’s exciting way to go Shanir and shout out to our sponsor. Got to pay the bills. Now, the sponsor of the Daily Show is Steve Reese with Reese Consulting. He let me know that with all of the things going on and the growth in the LNG and natural gas space, that there is a training issue. And if your employees need training, reach out to Steve Reese at Reese Consulting, ReeseEnergyConsulting .com. They are fabulous. But if you are in looking to sell natural gas, if you’re looking to buy or put in a power plant, you need Reese Consulting. Anyway, thank you again for our great sponsors.

[00:08:39] Let’s go to the next story here. China’s oil imports could rise as newest refinery begins trial runs. This is in the Shandong Yulong Petrochemical is set, you know, I can’t pronounce a lot of things, but I think I got that one. That’s kind of funny. Is set to begin trial runs at its second of 200 ,000 barrels per day crude processing unit increasing Chinese refining capacity. This expansion could lead to boost Chinese crude import despite recent declines. Refinery has been diversifying its crude sources, increasing purchases from West Africa and Brazil and also Iraq. So go figure that out, Iran. So you gotta sit back and kind of, they are taking ships in from the dark fleet. It’s kind of fun to see how that goes through. But if they can buy everything that they can from Russia and Iran, they will.

Stuart Turley [00:09:36] Germany’s new government is set to reshape its energy policy. Germany’s new coalition government is shifting energy policy, potentially rolling back an ambitious climate targets. The climate, the government plans a 500 billion infrastructure fund to upgrade the nation’s aging power grids. Concerns over high energy costs and energy security are driving the new policies decisions. They’ve ramped up their clean energy spending under the previous coalition. Oh, it sounds like the UK, Delaware, New Jersey, California, New York, where there is that kind of spending, there is deindustrialization. The other key developments taking shape for Germany’s energy sector under the new government will be ramping up investments in its aging and insufficient power grids. But I want to know are they looking at firing up the nuclear reactors that were shut down? The government did sneak in a purchase of a very large purchase of uranium from last year in Germany from Russia. So I’ve been waiting for the approval process on this. In fact, when I saw the article come out yesterday or day before that nuclear was changing their nuclear policies. It wasn’t their nuclear plants. It was that they want to talk to president Trump about the nuclear U S NATO base as nuclear weapons there. And if we pull out of NATO and we pull those nuclear weapons out, they’re going to be kind of like naked. So they were wanting to figure out how they get and become a nuclear power again. So put the wrong kind of nuclear power. Anyway, I just hats off for Germany. They don’t have the second amendment, just like the UK to defend themselves should they need to. Anyway, we hope the best for Germany and the UK. But I believe that the EU UK and Germany and NATO are financially and fiscally in trouble. Buckle up. It’s going to be an interesting next few months. I’m excited to see the end of the Russia war and hopefully let’s get this thing going.

Stuart Turley [00:11:51] So like, subscribe, share, go to the energynewsbeat .substack .com or go to energynewsbeat .com or energynewsbeat .co and absolutely look forward to seeing you. If you’re an energy expert, I want to talk to you on the podcast. I just recorded Alexander Duncan. He is a young man that is going to be taking on a Rhino and look forward to getting that podcast out there. If you are going to be running as an America First person, I want to interview you and get your story out there. If you’re a Democrat with America First, let’s check your voting record, but I’d still love to interview you. Anyway, have a great day. Have a good time.

 

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‘Follow The Money’: How Climate Bureaucrats Are Robbing Taxpayers Blind

Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: The climate crisis religion has not had humanity’s best interests for decades. We are now seeing the money trail for the first time. The Climate Crisis is a way to scare people to give up control and transfer money. The Biden Administration and their blatant corruption shoveling of money may be the wake-up call the world needed. The climate protestors we find have all been paid actors over the years, and the tax dollars were used to pay for their protests. Their protests were used to justify horrific energy policies that cost the global citizens even more. Their goals are to de-industrialize and ruin the family base support system to put total civilian controls in place. 


 

Biden’s EPA funneled billions to newly formed NGOs, with political insiders, not scientists, deciding who got the cash.

​As the Biden administration gasped its final breaths, Jennifer Granholm’s last days as Energy Secretary were not spent ensuring accountability or delivering results. [some emphasis, links added]

Instead, they were a frenzied, last-minute cash grab, a breathtaking rush to shovel billions of taxpayer dollars into the pockets of politically connected insiders.

Was this truly about advancing clean energy, or was it just another brazen scheme to redirect public funds under the convenient guise of climate activism?

The deeper you dig, the clearer the pattern becomes: freshly minted nonprofits with no track record, billions funneled to organizations that barely existed months ago, and an astonishing lack of oversight in how these funds will be spent.

No real infrastructure. No real impact. Just a money pipeline dressed up as environmentalism. But, of course, we’re told this must be done to ‘SAVE THE PLANET.’

A Skeptic No More: The Moment of Realization

I’ll be honest, I didn’t always think this level of corruption was possible, much less supported by the very scientific discipline I’ve devoted my career. I’ve always believed in rigorous science, transparent research, and the importance of addressing environmental challenges with real, tangible solutions.

But what I’ve found here has shaken that belief to its core.

I used to think the rhetoric about rampant green energy fraud was overblown. Now? The scale of outright theft is staggering.

A recent investigative report called it “like throwing gold bars off the Titanic (The Free Press). That phrase perfectly captures the madness of it all: billions of taxpayer dollars vanishing into thin air, handed out to NGOs that barely existed a year ago.

Even the EPA’s own Inspector General has now formally referred this $20 billion mismanagement to federal authorities, confirming the massive fraud and financial mismanagement behind these so-called “climate initiatives” (EPA).

If this were truly about the environment, we’d see real projects, real infrastructure, and real pollution reductions.

Instead, what we’re seeing is a feeding frenzy for political insiders, and worse, an entire network of self-enriching organizations built on the back of the environmental cause.

The Fastest Billion-Dollar NGO Boom in History

One of the most outrageous revelations is how quickly these so-called environmental nonprofits were formed before receiving massive government payouts.

Take the Climate United Fund, which was awarded nearly $7 billion in grants, despite the fact that it was created just five months earlier and had no public financial records or significant past work in environmental projects.

Source

Upon examining the leadership of the Climate United Fund, it becomes evident that the organization is led primarily by political operatives, financial strategists, and community organizers, not scientists or engineers. Not a single leader appears to have formal training in earth science, atmospheric physics, or energy engineering.

These are the people now entrusted with billions to shape America’s climate strategy.

It was part of a broader $20 billion disbursement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which handed billions to eight nonprofit groups—many of which had no history of handling large-scale climate initiatives.

This isn’t just mismanagement.

This is the calculated repurposing of environmental rhetoric to channel taxpayer money into organizations that, for all intents and purposes, exist only to absorb federal cash.

And these organizations are just the tip of the iceberg.

A Money Pipeline Masquerading as Climate Action

The EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a $27 billion program ostensibly designed to accelerate the country’s transition to clean energy, has turned into a black hole of corruption.

According to reports, John Podesta, Biden’s climate czar and a longtime Democratic operative, was instrumental in deciding which organizations received money from this massive federal slush fund (New York Post).

And let’s be clear: these groups were not chosen based on their expertise in climate science, renewable energy, or sustainability.

Instead, they appear to have been selected based on their political connections and their ability to act as financial pass-throughs for government handouts.

Continue reading rest at Irrational Fear


Irrational Fear is written by climatologist Dr. Matthew Wielicki and is reader-supported. If you value what you have read here, please consider subscribing and supporting the work that goes into it.

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Is the U.S. Facing a Debt Crisis?

Energy News Beat

ENB Pub Note: Yes, the US is in a debt crisis caused by the Republicans and Democrats. It will be tough to unwind the deliberate take down of the United States, and I believe we are in for some tough times. But we should give President Trump a little time to unwind the corruption. The Fed and the Treasury have been shoveling money out the door with no accountability. Should that debt be written off as theft? Should the Fed be dismantled? I do not have an answer to the theft,  but we should get rid of the Fed and revamp the Treasury.


Trump policies expected to push soaring debt even higher.

By , a deputy editor at Foreign Policy, and , a columnist at Foreign Policy and director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Sign up for Adam’s Chartbook newsletter here.

What makes U.S. debt sustainable? Do international tensions increase the riskiness of U.S. debt? What would happen if the United States had a full-on debt crisis?

The U.S. government’s budget deficit in 2024 was $1.8 trillion, which pushed the country’s overall debt to some $36 trillion. Some financial analysts suggest a debt load of that size simply isn’t sustainable, especially given the Trump administration’s legislative priority of making current tax cuts permanent and increasing spending on immigration enforcement—measures that would increase the deficit further.

What makes U.S. debt sustainable? Do international tensions increase the riskiness of U.S. debt? What would happen if the United States had a full-on debt crisis?

Those are just a few of the questions that came up in my recent conversation with FP economics columnist Adam Tooze on the podcast we co-host, Ones and Tooze. What follows is an excerpt, edited for length and clarity. For the full conversation, look for Ones and Tooze wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Adam’s Substack newsletter.

Cameron Abadi: How do investors evaluate whether U.S. debts can be paid back fully or sustainably in any way?

Adam Tooze: The crucial distinction we need to make in thinking about debt is the distinction between private debt and public debt. And public debt in a fiat money system, like the one that we’ve all been living in for more than half a century, since the early 1970s, will always be paid back. Why? Because it’s denominated in dollars, and there is no limit on the ability of the monetary authorities to print and issue dollars for the repayment of debt, first and foremost. That’s what they’re for, arguably, other than prudence. So that’s the only constraint. In a legal, technical sense, these debts will always be paid. You don’t want to do that by, you know, printing a giant lottery-winner check that says $27 trillion or whatever and handing that out—because it would destabilize the faith and credit and the stability of the entire financial system.

But on the other hand, neither do you want to fully repay the debt. The very idea of asking the question—could the federal government debt be repaid—should be anathema to any sensible person. Why? Because public debt is fundamentally unlike private debt regarding the question of what repaying it would mean. It’s not just that it can always be repaid, because unlike a private debt, the public, the state, is in fact the issuer of the currency in which it’s repaid. But it’s also the function of debt in a public context. Because states don’t have finite lifetimes. So each individual obligation—say we’re talking about $5 billion worth of 10-year debt issued by the Treasury in early 2025—if you ask how in 2035, 10 years from now, we’re going to repay that 10-year Treasury, the most obvious answer is we’re going to issue a new 10-year Treasury in 2035 for $5 billion or whatever it is we need to repay.

And you could say, well, hang on, that means we’re continuously kicking the can forward. But yes, that is exactly what we’re going to do. Why? Because in the same way as the American government now has an unlimited time horizon in relation to the 10-year debt it issues, now, it’d still have an unlimited time horizon in relation to the 10-year debt it issues in 2035, because we don’t get closer to infinity in 10 years’ time, right? There’s still this infinite time horizon. Furthermore, what we know pretty much for sure is that there will be some measure, perhaps not the identical level of measure, but nevertheless some measure of demand for that debt when we issue it. Why? Because what public debt serves as is not a particular gamble by a particular business on its credit worthiness, but essentially as the dumping ground for our collective savings. And there are people now who want to save for 10 years and put it in a very safe asset that pays interest, and then we’ll repay them in 10 years’ time, which is where the demand for the 10-year, you know, $5 billion issuance right now comes from.

And we know for certain, as long as the American economy goes on and there are savers, in 10 years’ time there will be people who also want to make that deal. The question is, will they want to make that deal on the same terms as right now? And that’s the question. And assuming that we don’t engage in ridiculously imprudent behavior—and the Trump administration and the Republicans are, after all, just doing Republican tax-and-spend, you know, or rather just spend-and-don’t-tax policy like they’ve done repeatedly since the Reagan era—we do expect the American economy to still be there in 10 years’ time. We do expect investors to be there, and they will soak up and absorb this debt. And the Congressional Budget Office forecasts are that, as a result of these actions, the debt level will rise from 100 percent of GDP for debt held in the private sector to 120 percent of GDP for debt held in the private sector. And that’s a manageable number. And so we will expect people to be coming back.

And that’s the way this will be rolled forward, we all hope, for eternity, because if we were to take this public debt offering away, folks that wanted to save money safely for 10 years would have to stick it in private debt. And even if Nvidia or Apple are brilliant companies and they can borrow on terms which are very little different from the American government, they are, after all, still gambles on the fact that iPhones will be attractive in 10 years’ time, or the particular brand of AI chips that Nvidia produces will be world-beating. Whereas you could just invest your money in the prospect that there will be an American state, an American government, and a GDP, which even the GOP at some level will be willing to tax in some form. And so obviously the latter, the government debt mechanism, is a much safer, collective way of handling the intergenerational transfer or the intertemporal transfer of wealth that’s necessary for everyone to engage in long-range planning for their retirement and so on.

CA: How could geopolitics affect the calculations made in debt markets? Would the holders of U.S. debt have to factor in the possibility that the United States might choose, for political reasons, not to acknowledge the debts held by countries, say, like China?

AT: That scenario that you’re outlining is really a novel one in the conversation about U.S. public debt. I mean, it’s a logical possibility. It’s a selective default on your foreign creditors. It’s the sort of thing that governments only normally consider doing under truly desperate circumstances, or if you’re actually imposing sanctions on somebody. So to some extent, the freezing of Russian assets in the bank accounts of the European financial system is that, right? Because every Russian deposit is effectively a Russian claim. And so when you sanction those and prevent the Russians from pulling the money out, you’re effectively voiding a debt obligation that you have to them. So that’s the circumstances under which you might be able to do this. The consequences for your creditworthiness longer term are disastrous, right? No one will subsequently lend to you.

So the much more common speculation is the other way around. The much more common speculation, which was commonplace of the early 2000s as China’s holdings against the United States began to build up, was that you’d have a sudden stop by the creditors to the borrower. In other words, the Chinese would stop lending money to the Americans and might attempt to offload their existing claims, because there’s always a market for U.S. Treasurys, and crash the U.S. Treasury market. And we believe the Kremlin actually recommended this to Beijing in early 2008. And again, to kind of throw cold water on an overdramatic scenario, Beijing took one look at this and said, “No, that’s crazy, we won’t do that.” Instead, they stayed in very close touch with the Americans. It’s not just that there’s this Treasury advisory committee, but there’s also government-to-government contact on these kinds of issues. And they negotiated a shift of the Chinese holdings of government or quasi-government debt out of the most exposed parts of the U.S. financial system that were most exposed to the mortgage crisis and into the safer part. And that’s as far as Chinese measures went.

There’s another, however, politics to this, which speaks to the underlying gist of your question, which is that having done that, the Chinese public woke up and said, “What the hell are we doing? Why are we lending money to the Americans? This doesn’t make any sense. Why are we subsidizing their threatening behavior toward us and their efforts to resist the rise of China?” So patriotic opinion in China said, you know, “We should stop doing this.” So one of the things we’ve seen in China, and one of the reasons why China’s declared figures for U.S. public debt have fallen is that it doesn’t look very good for the Chinese official agencies to be accumulating more claims on the U.S. What we think has happened is that they shifted those claims to other bits of the Chinese financial system.

And so then you might ask yourself, “Well, hang on, so you’re telling me that they are going on accumulating claims on the United States, despite the fact that they couldn’t use them as a tool of power against America in 2008, like Russia recommended, and they’re bad politics in China now, because the Chinese public doesn’t like to see Chinese support for America in this form?” And the answer is, of course, that these claims against America, a little bit like the argument about the difference between public and private debt, are not just free-standing financial obligations. They’re the flip side of the underlying pattern of trade. And so long as China has a state-managed balance of payments and a large trade surplus with the United States, it’s going to accumulate claims against America. That’s what the trade surplus means. I give you great Chinese stuff and you give me claims. You give me promises to pay at some point in the future. And you don’t just hold those as IOUs. The main IOU you hold is U.S. Treasurys. That’s why you have to pile them up.

So as long as China, as long as Germany, as long as anyone goes on running a trade surplus with the United States, they, in one form or another, have to accumulate net financial claims against the U.S. And so long as the Chinese are not willing to adjust their economic policies to reduce that imbalance, the reserve accumulation goes on, and your only option is really to hide it in various forms.

CA: What would it look like if America, as the largest economy in the world, really went through a real debt crisis? Would it be analogous to the other kinds of debt crises that we’ve seen from other countries in the recent past?

AT: So this is not a hypothetical. It happened on our watch, during COVID in the spring of 2020. In February and March 2020, we saw a run on the Treasury market. And it’s an ongoing discussion exactly what triggered it. But the two key players were foreign reserve holders that needed, because their economies were shocked by COVID like the American economy, to get at dollars quickly. Everyone wanted cash, and so they liquidated, they smashed their piggy banks in the U.S. and tried to sell their Treasurys. And that then either triggered or was helped to be precipitated by an unwinding of a bunch of hedge fund trades. And so you got that toxic interaction between normally placid, slow-moving reserve holders and highly prized sensitive hedge fund holders of Treasurys. And we saw epic movements in Treasurys.

I’ll never forget talking to a financial manager from Singapore who described to me the shock of spending a day in Singapore trying to unload a portfolio of a couple of billion dollars of U.S. Treasurys—which are normally just like having a bank account, they’re the same as dollars, you can sell them in a matter of seconds for $2 billion—and not being able to unload them all day long. And he described coming down out of the skyscraper he was in as looking up at the building and going, “Well, if my Treasurys don’t have a price today, what is that building worth? If I can’t sell that Treasury—something that is supposed to be the same as dollars—what is this building worth?” And then looking around at the rest of Singapore and going, “I don’t know what any of this is worth, if a U.S. Treasury is not the same as a dollar.”

That’s how fundamental this was, and this is how shocking this was, which is why I ended up writing that book Shutdown about it because it’s a financial shock bigger than the 2008 banking crisis, because that was about private claims. That was about private mortgages, private securities. What we saw in the spring of 2020 was a crisis in the public debt market of the United States. But because it was in the public debt market of the United States, there was also an immediate and quick fix. So quick, so immediate that most people don’t even know this happened, which is that, as we were saying at the top, public debt is not the same as other types of debt. It is the same as the currency. It’s just another form. It’s a less liquid form of the kind of liabilities issued by the government.

And so how do you fix this? The Fed steps in. The Fed just simply started buying these, and it started answering the dude in Singapore’s question, what is the Treasury worth? The Fed said it’s worth exactly what it says on the tin. If that says $100, here’s $100. For several weeks, they were buying over $85 billion worth of U.S. Treasurys a day. That is like 2008 quantitative easing 30x, right? Because that’s the kind of numbers that [former Federal Reserve chair Ben] Bernanke was buying per month in 2008. They were doing it every single day. They bought a huge slice of the Treasury market, just took it out of private hands and said, you know what? It’s worth exactly what it says on the thing. Don’t, don’t, don’t look down. This is not a Wile E. Coyote movement. We are not out over the precipice. You’re firmly on land here. If you just put your feet down, you’ll discover it’s worth exactly what we told you it was worth.

And that’s how you end a crisis in the U.S. debt market, right? So we know how that works. Now, what we haven’t experienced so far is a comprehensive run by American holders of debt on the American debt market. So what we saw was this interaction between the people in the Cayman Islands and the reserve holders abroad. It didn’t spread to the entire foundations of the U.S. financial system because the Fed didn’t let it. Like, you know, if that guy in Singapore was having that thought, what you really don’t want is the people in New Jersey having that thought. So that is what the Fed stepped in to stabilize and prevent from happening.

And I mean, I’ve been looking around prompted by your questions, but this is everyone’s question. Like, could there be rumblings in the Treasury market loud enough to actually sort of shake sense into the Trump administration? Is a big liberal hammer going to come down on the Trump administration and say, “Enough with the crazy”? Is there going to be a financial market voice that will say, “Well, you can do these sorts of things but not those,” and kind of constrain this? A little bit like the kind of threat potential that curbed the Clinton administration in the early 1990s, or left-wing governments around the world have faced. They are much more vulnerable because their currencies aren’t the dollar and their central banks aren’t the Fed.

The test of the Trump administration is what happens if this shaking happens at the very heart of the system, and there really isn’t anything to suggest so far, at least, that we’re going to see that kind of crunch. What we are seeing is an uncomfortably high level of interest rates, right? So when [Donald] Trump was in office the first time around, when they did the tax cuts the first time around, the interest rate was 2 percent, 2.3 percent on 10-year Treasurys, and now it’s closer to 4.3 percent. And that’s the difference that they may be faced with. And the worst case is that could edge up, you know, it could go over 5 [percent]. All of a sudden, then everything in the private sector would be more expensive in terms of credit costs. And the U.S. Treasury would face much bigger interest rate bills. That would be the way, I think, we would imagine the pressure being exercised.

 

Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. X: @CameronAbadi

Adam Tooze is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a history professor and the director of the European Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of Chartbook, a newsletter on economics, geopolitics, and history. X: @adam_tooze

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DOT Scraps Biden-Era Memos Pushing Social Justice And Equity Initiatives

Energy News Beat

DOT scrapped Biden-era memos pushing a ‘social justice and environmental’ agenda, refocusing on infrastructure and commerce under new leadership.

dot sean duffy
The Department of Transportation (DOT) scrapped two memos from the Biden administration that the agency said misaligned priorities to serve a “social justice and environmental agenda.” [emphasis, links added]

The two memorandums issued during the Biden administration under Secretary Pete Buttigieg listed objectives such as “reconnecting communities and reflecting the inclusion of disadvantaged and under-represented groups in the planning, project selection, and design process” and “accommodating new and emerging technologies like electric vehicle charging stations,” according to DOT.

“Under President Trump’s leadership, the Department of Transportation is getting back to basics — building critical infrastructure projects that move people and move commerce safely,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement.

“The previous administration flouted Congress in an attempt to push a radical social and environmental agenda on the American people. This was an act of federal overreach. It stops now.”

Specifically, the department took issue with the memos’ efforts when it came to cutting back on “greenhouse gas emissions” and “equity initiatives.”

The memos centered on how to best use the billions in funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 across the country. Neither memo is currently available on the Federal Highway Administration website.

However, this is not the first time the memos have faced scrutiny.

The United States Chamber of Commerce in Jan. 2023 asked the Federal Highway Administrator Shailen Bhatt to get rid of the “Policy on Using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Resources to Build a Better America” memo to avoid overcomplicating the overall mission of taxpayer-funded infrastructure investments.

“We supported the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) because it represents the most significant infusion of investment in our infrastructure since the enactment of the Interstate Highway System in the mid-1950s,” the chamber wrote with various other groups, including the American Trucking Associations and the Association of American Railroads.

“It is also a carefully negotiated and balanced package of policy reforms and targeted national investments that will make Americans’ lives better. However, the Dec. 16 memo elicited significant confusion within the transportation community as the guidance intended to serve as an overarching policy framework that prioritizes IIJA resources towards certain projects, which was inconsistent with what was laid out under the legislation President Biden signed into law the month before,” the letter added.

DOT has taken aim at various liberal policies in the early days of Duffy’s tenure in office, including ordering a compliance audit of the California High-Speed Rail project and is asking for the Manhattan congestion tolls program to end.

In Congress, other transportation-related efforts are being scrutinized, such as wanting to get rid of electric-vehicle efforts in the United States Postal Service.

Read more at Fox News

 

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Trump’s Rhetoric Gets Results – and drives the war mongers and left nuts

Energy News Beat

The U.S.-Ukraine cease-fire plan reflects the president’s overriding foreign-policy objective: to end the war.

Argument

An expert’s point of view on a current event.

Kroenig-Matthew-foreign-policy-columnist12
Kroenig-Matthew-foreign-policy-columnist12
Matthew Kroenig
By , a columnist at Foreign Policy and vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

With the March 11 announcement that Washington and Kyiv have agreed on a cease-fire proposal for the Russia-Ukraine war, it is time to take stock of U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to European and Ukrainian security and correct the record.

In the last few weeks, Democrats, the mainstream media, and U.S. allies have suffered a collective panic attack. They should take a breath, stop overreacting to rhetoric and symbolism, and focus on the results. If NATO allies are spending more on defense in the coming months, and there is a cease-fire in Ukraine—plausible, if not likely, outcomes—European security will be in a better place than it is today.

With the March 11 announcement that Washington and Kyiv have agreed on a cease-fire proposal for the Russia-Ukraine war, it is time to take stock of U.S. President Donald Trump’s approach to European and Ukrainian security and correct the record.

In the last few weeks, Democrats, the mainstream media, and U.S. allies have suffered a collective panic attack. They should take a breath, stop overreacting to rhetoric and symbolism, and focus on the results. If NATO allies are spending more on defense in the coming months, and there is a cease-fire in Ukraine—plausible, if not likely, outcomes—European security will be in a better place than it is today.

A few incidents triggered the recent meltdowns. There was U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech criticizing European values at the Munich Security Conference last month. The United States voted with Russia and North Korea and against traditional allies on a United Nations resolution that condemned Russian aggression in Ukraine and called for Russian-occupied territory to be returned to Kyiv. On Feb. 28, Trump held a contentious Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Then, last week, the Trump administration cut off intelligence and military assistance to Ukraine.

These events have led officials and commentators to conclude that the United States is siding with Russia and abandoning Europe, pursuing an imperialistic foreign policy, seeking a spheres-of-influence arrangement with autocratic powers, and overthrowing the postwar international order. The Wall Street Journal, for example, reported that the new “European consensus” is that the United States “has switched sides from standing with democracies like Canada, like France, like Japan, and is now standing with dictators like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

This is the wrong take. After all, we have been down this road before. During Trump’s first term, he criticized allies and used conciliatory language toward Putin. Authoritative voices told us that Trump colluded with Russia and could disband NATO.

But in the end, NATO was strengthened, and Russia was weakened. NATO allies spent more on defense than before Trump took office, and new countries joined the alliance. The United States increased spending on the European Deterrence Initiative, deployed troops to Poland, and built two new low-yield nuclear weapons to deter Russia. Furthermore, Russia took territory from its neighbors under forme Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden—but not under Trump.

Some critics might argue that this outcome was due to responsible advisors who served during Trump’s first term, the so-called adults in the room who reportedly reigned in Trump’s worst instincts. But these advisors are patting themselves on the back for decisions that Trump would have made anyway. No one forces Trump to do something that he doesn’t want to do. And his negotiating approach, as he wrote in The Art of the Deal, is to make extreme threats and demands with the intention of arriving at a reasonable outcome in the end.

This pattern is repeating itself, but it is as if foreign-policy observers have collective amnesia. It takes a willful misreading of the record to conclude that Trump is siding with Russia over NATO. The president’s demands that allies increase defense spending are intended to strengthen NATO—and they are working. In recent weeks, Denmark, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom have announced major spending increases, and the European Union has instituted procedures to facilitate arms production and spending.

Trump’s overriding foreign-policy objective, however, is to end the war in Ukraine. He has said repeatedly that he is a “peacemaker” and wants to “stop the killing” in Ukraine. He has explained that he must act as an “arbitrator” to succeed. Trump signaled clearly on the campaign trail that he would use his relationships with both Zelensky and Putin to negotiate peace, and he said that he would threaten both sides to get them to the table if necessary.

This strategy explains recent events. Trump cannot both demonize Putin and serve as a mediator. As he said during his Oval Office meeting with Zelensky, “You want me to say really terrible things about Putin and then say, ‘Hi, Vladimir, how are we doing on the deal?’ It doesn’t work that way.”

To be sure, Trump has had contentious exchanges with Zelensky before, but the Oval Office meeting was not a planned ambush. The discussion proceeded without incident for 40 minutes and went off the rails at the precise moment when Zelensky challenged Vance about the feasibility of diplomacy with Russia. It is no wonder that Trump and Vance reacted angrily when Zelensky publicly threatened to be an obstacle to their foremost foreign-policy priority.

Trump communicated exactly how he would handle such a situation on the campaign trail. He said, “I would tell Zelensky, no more. You got to make a deal.” The temporary suspension of intelligence and military assistance was designed to motivate Ukraine to negotiate in good faith—and it worked. Trump explained, “I want to know they [Ukraine] want to settle, and I don’t know they want to settle.” (As Ukraine envoy Keith Kellogg said to gasps at the Council on Foreign Relations last week, “The Ukrainians brought this on themselves,” explaining the suspension of aid.)

Lest one think that Trump is leaning toward one side, just wait. Russia is next. Last Friday, he posted on Truth Social to threaten “large scale Banking Sanctions, Sanctions, and Tariffs on Russia until a Cease Fire and FINAL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT ON PEACE IS REACHED.” The United States can and should greatly ramp up the pressure on Russia, including by seizing Russian frozen assets, if Putin does not negotiate in good faith.

The goal of all this activity is not a reshaped international order. Trump does not stay up at night designing spheres-of-influence arrangements with Putin or Chinese President Xi Jinping. Pundits are awkwardly trying to impose frameworks on Trump that do not fit: He is not an international relations theorist, and his goal is simply peace in Ukraine.

Contrary to the myth that Trump wants to sell Ukraine down the river, he has prioritized a critical minerals deal that would give the United States a strong and enduring economic interest in the long-term security and prosperity of an independent Ukraine. For a businessman skeptical of overseas U.S. troop deployments, this agreement may be a more compelling statement of Trump’s intent than a promise to put boots on the ground.

A more conventional politician would not pursue the goal in the way that Trump has. But Trump is not a conventional politician, and these methods work for him. Indeed, we are settling into a pattern in which Trump makes a provocative statement, people freak out, and the United States arrives at a better place in the end.

Take the recent events around the Panama Canal as an example. For years, a Hong Kong company has operated terminals on both ends of the canal, posing a security risk to the United States, Panama, and the global economy. In his inaugural address, Trump said, “China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.” The Associated Press and other outlets reported that Trump was “embracing a new imperialist agenda” and that he was “threatening to seize the Panama Canal.”

But Trump did not send in the Marines. The issue was resolved peacefully a few weeks later when a group, led by U.S. investment firm BlackRock, purchased a majority stake in the ports business of the Hong Kong company, which promises to eliminate the security threat.

Bringing it back to this week’s negotiations, commentators should stop overreacting to the outrage of the day and focus on Trump’s objective: bringing a just peace to the biggest war in Europe since World War II—an outcome that all should support. In contrast, Biden mouthed soothing words, but then war erupted in Europe and the Middle East. I, for one, would prefer good results to good rhetoric.

  •  

Matthew Kroenig is a columnist at Foreign Policy and vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a professor in the Department of Government and the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. His latest book, with Dan Negrea, is We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War. X: @matthewkroenig

 

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Trump EPA Cancels $40M in Environmental Justice Grants Biden Admin Awarded Its Advisers

Energy News Beat

The EPA canceled $40 million in environmental justice grants that the Biden administration awarded to its own advisers.

money pile
The Environmental Protection Agency canceled two $20 million environmental justice grants that the Biden administration awarded to its own advisers, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. [emphasis, links added]

On Monday, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency’s latest round of grant cancellations and cost-cutting measures.

Included among the more than 400 canceled grants are two that the Biden administration awarded in December to Tennessee-based nonprofit Young, Gifted & Green and North Carolina-based nonprofit Democracy Green, a source familiar told the Free Beacon.

Both groups had connections to the Biden White House and EPA—and neither had handled such a substantial amount of money before securing the taxpayer funds.

Young, Gifted & Green received its $20 million environmental justice grant after its CEO—LaTricea Adams—personally applied for the funding while simultaneously serving as a member of a top White House environmental justice council, the Free Beacon reported last month.

The group has reported just $2.7 million in revenue—about 14 percent the size of the grant—since it registered as a nonprofit in 2020, tax filings show.

Democracy Green, meanwhile, received the $20 million to restore wetlands and remove lead pipes in hundreds of homes in North Carolina. 

The group is a small mother-daughter operation that has never conducted wetlands restoration or lead pipe removals, the Free Beacon reported last week.

Last January, former EPA Administrator Michael Regan appointed the president of its board, La’Meshia Whittington, to his Local Government Advisory Committee. Months later, Whittington spoke alongside Regan at a policy forum.

The actions underscore the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle Biden-era spending.

Zeldin has taken particular aim at green energy and environmental justice programs that the previous administration rushed to implement during its final weeks and months in office.

“Working hand-in-hand with DOGE to rein in wasteful federal spending, EPA has saved more than $2 billion in taxpayer money,” Zeldin said in a statement on Monday. “It is our commitment at EPA to be exceptional stewards of tax dollars.”

Both the grant awarded to Young, Gifted & Green and the grant given to Democracy Green were part of the $2 billion Climate Justice Community Change Program, which was established by Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and championed by former president Joe Biden and former EPA administrator Michael Regan.

The groups were among the 105 entities selected to receive funding under the program. The EPA received 2,801 applications requesting tens of billions of dollars in funding for the program.

According to the source familiar, Zeldin’s actions to cut Biden-era spending affect several other Climate Justice Community Change Program grants and grants awarded under eight other programs.

Those programs include the EPA’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program and Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program.

In addition, Zeldin’s team located $20 billion the Biden administration awarded to eight nonprofits under the Inflation Reduction Act’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund program parked at an outside financial institution.

The Department of Justice froze that funding while they and the FBI investigate the Biden administration’s implementation of that program.

Top photo by Vladimir Solomianyi on Unsplash

Read rest at Free Beacon

 

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U.S. Imposes Sweeping Steel, Aluminum Tariffs

Energy News Beat

The European Union and Canada retaliate with a slew of countermeasures.


World Brief
FP’s flagship daily newsletter, catching you up on 24 hours of news in five minutes. Delivered weekdays.

U.S. Imposes Sweeping Steel, Aluminum Tariffs

The European Union and Canada retaliate with a slew of countermeasures.

An illustration of Alexandra Sharp, World Brief newsletter writer
An illustration of Alexandra Sharp, World Brief newsletter writer
Alexandra Sharp
By , the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates in Washington.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates in Washington.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds up a piece of paper with information about tariff rates while speaking at the White House in Washington on March 11. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the latest slew of U.S. tariffs, Greenland’s election results, a no-confidence vote in Portugal, and resumed U.S. military aid to Ukraine.


Fierce Global Backlash

The United States imposed 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Wednesday. The policy is aimed at leveling the playing field for U.S. manufacturers, but experts predict that the duties will cost U.S. companies billions of dollars, risk an economic slowdown, and escalate a growing global trade war.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the latest slew of U.S. tariffs, Greenland’s election results, a no-confidence vote in Portugal, and resumed U.S. military aid to Ukraine.


Fierce Global Backlash

The United States imposed 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports on Wednesday. The policy is aimed at leveling the playing field for U.S. manufacturers, but experts predict that the duties will cost U.S. companies billions of dollars, risk an economic slowdown, and escalate a growing global trade war.

Among those most heavily targeted are the European Union, Canada, and China. The United States represents 16 percent of all EU steel exports, making it the bloc’s second-biggest market. According to European steel association Eurofer, the EU could lose up to 3.7 million tons of steel exports due to the tariffs.

Earlier this week, the White House planned to impose additional 25 percent duties on Canadian metals in response to threats of a surcharge on U.S. electricity, announced by Ontario Premier Doug Ford. But those additional duties were scrapped when Ford agreed to pause his threat ahead of trade talks, which will be held on Thursday with Canadian Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Meanwhile, metal duties on China hit a total rate of 45 percent, as the United States already has a 20 percent across-the-board tariff on Chinese imports. The latest round comes on top of separate tariffs that the United States has placed on Canada, Mexico, and China as well as “reciprocal” tariffs that Washington plans to impose on the European Union, Brazil, and South Korea on April 2.

Wednesday’s steel and aluminum tariffs prompted immediate foreign backlash. The European Union was among the first to respond, announcing retaliatory duties targeting around $28 billion worth of U.S. exports. They will be imposed in two waves: on April 1 and April 13. The duties are primarily aimed at products made in Republican-majority states, such as beef and poultry from Kansas and Nebraska—in an apparent aim at Trump’s base. But tariffs will also hit Democrat-majority states, such as Illinois, which is the No. 1 U.S. producer of soybeans.

“We deeply regret this measure,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday. “Tariffs are taxes. They are bad for business, and even worse for consumers,” she said, adding that the EU “will always remain open to negotiation.”

Ottawa also responded with retaliatory measures. As the largest steel supplier to the United States, Canada said it will place 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum starting Thursday as well as raise duties on a slew of other products. These will impact goods worth around $20.6 billion, and they come on top of 25 percent counter-tariffs that Canada imposed on March 4 in response to other U.S. trade threats.

Canadian Prime Minister-elect Mark Carney said on Wednesday that he is ready to meet with Trump to discuss alleviating the tariffs but only if the United States respects his country’s sovereignty. Trump has repeatedly threatened to make Canada the 51st U.S. state, going so far as to call their centuries-old border an “artificial line of separation” in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.

Not every country responded to U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs with retaliatory duties, though. On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called the U.S. tariffs “entirely unjustified” but stopped short of imposing reciprocal measures. “Tariffs and escalating trade tensions are a form of economic self-harm and a recipe for slower growth and higher inflation,” he warned.


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Election upsets. Snap parliamentary elections in Greenland on Tuesday resulted in a complete upheaval, with the center-right Demokraatit party more than tripling its seat count to secure first place. Naleraq, another pro-independence party, came in second place with almost 25 percent of the vote. Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute Egede said on Wednesday that the parties will now work to form a coalition government.

Having two pro-independence parties achieve surprise victories signaled a surge in Greenlandic nationalism at a time when Trump is repeatedly calling for the United States to take control of the mineral-rich Danish territory—something that authorities in Greenland and Denmark have resoundingly dismissed. On Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen called the election “a joyful day and a celebration of democracy.”

Also on Tuesday, Portugal’s center-right minority government lost a no-confidence vote in parliament, forcing Social Democrat Prime Minister Luís Montenegro to resign from office. Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance finished first in a March 2024 election, but the win was tight, with the Socialist Party and far-right Chega party also securing significant portions of the vote. Montenegro has been unable to form a ruling coalition since.

The no-confidence vote comes amid the worst bout of political instability that the country has experienced since Portugal began the transition to democracy in 1974. Lisbon will likely hold new elections in May, according to President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa; this will be Portugal’s third such vote in three years.

Renewing arms shipments. U.S. military aid deliveries to Ukraine resumed on Wednesday, one day after Saudi Arabia hosted high-level talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials. During the meeting, Kyiv expressed willingness to accept a 30-day cease-fire with Russia and immediately enter peace talks—should Moscow agree to do the same.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that it’s important not to “get ahead” of the truce proposal, adding that Russia is waiting on “detailed information” from the United States before it can take a position. The White House’s Middle East special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is expected to travel to Moscow this week to discuss the plan.

Trump suspended all U.S. arms and intelligence-sharing to Ukraine more than a week ago following a heated meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. The move sparked major outcry among Ukraine’s supporters, including Washington’s NATO allies. As of Wednesday, though, U.S. weapons deliveries were up and running again through a Polish logistics center.

Hostage standoff ends. Pakistani officials said on Wednesday that they had rescued more than 300 travelers taken hostage the previous day by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist group that hijacked a train bound for the northwestern city of Peshawar by blowing up the tracks.

The militants—all of whom were reportedly killed during the rescue operation—killed around two dozen hostages, though there are conflicting reports about the exact death toll.

The BLA has long sought independent control of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan. The group has repeatedly targeted Punjabi travelers, Chinese infrastructure workers, and other civilians in a string of high-profile terrorist attacks. —Rishi Iyengar


Odds and Ends

Saturn’s skies are evidently a lot more crowded than previously thought. Astronomers ratified 128 newly discovered moons circling the famous ringed planet on Tuesday, bringing its total number to 274. That is nearly three times as many moons as Jupiter has—and certainly more than the one cratered neighbor that Earth boasts. At just a couple of miles wide each, none of the newly discovered moons match the size of Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

Alexandra Sharp is the World Brief writer at Foreign Policy. X: @AlexandraSSharp

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