The Trump administration is seeking other sources of fertilizer amid the ongoing Iran war's shipping constraints, including from Venezuela and possibly Morocco, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Tuesday.
Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, Reuters/Evelyn Hockstein
The Trump administration is seeking other sources of fertilizer amid the ongoing Iran war's shipping constraints, including from Venezuela and possibly Morocco, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said on Tuesday.
"We've ... established licenses for Venezuela to produce more fertilizer. We've had discussions with Morocco," he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" program, calling it "an insurance policy against disruption" for U.S. farmers.
"I'm not saying that we can eliminate what disruption there is so far, but we can minimize it," Hassett told CNBC in the interview.
Fertilizer supplies have shrunk as the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran cut off critical nitrogen fertilizer supplies from the Gulf to the world's farmers, sending prices spiking by more than one-third in recent weeks.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has floated the idea of replicating a U.N.-brokered deal that got grain out of Ukraine during wartime. It allows Ukraine to export grain, foodstuffs and fertilizers through the Black Sea, without civilian vessels coming under attack by Russia. She said she had spoken to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres about the idea and the U.N. was "working on this".
Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Susan Heavey
Residents of Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta took to the streets on Wednesday to protest the handling by Madrid of a migration crisis caused by a deadly border surge in July when at least 72,000 people crossed from Morocco.
NATO member Turkey would consider taking its relations with the China and Russia-led security bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, to a higher level, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.
The U.S. and Iran found themselves back in a war footing on Wednesday after the most significant exchange in weeks, with Washington threatening even more devastating strikes while Iran protested an attack that it said killed five and wounded dozens of civilians at a wedding.
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