President Joe Biden’s sanctions against Russia will likely come at a high price — not just for Russians, but for Americans, too, as even h...
President Joe Biden’s sanctions against Russia will likely come at a high price — not just for Russians, but for Americans, too, as even he now admits that food shortages loom in our near future.
Biden proudly touted the heavy sanctions after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. In late February, he even claimed the sanctions were designed not to hurt America.
“We have purposefully designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on the United States and our allies,” Biden said during a Feb. 24 news conference, adding that they “exceed anything that’s ever been done.”
Oddly, Biden didn’t place sanctions on the one sector of Russia’s economy that would have hurt it the most: oil exports. It wasn’t until weeks later that he finally bowed to public pressure and banned Russian oil imports.
Whether or not Biden suffered a case of “do-somethingism,” one thing is sure: The sanctions are going to be costly. And despite what he claimed last month, that cost will hit Americans as well as Russians.
Experts are now warning that the ongoing Ukraine conflict coupled with the crippling sanctions on Russia’s economy could result in food shortages throughout the U.S. and the world, with some even predicting that crop yields for the 2022 growing season may fall by a catastrophic 50 percent.
One of the biggest problems is that Russia exports a large portion of the fertilizers and fertilizer supplies that the world’s farmers use to raise healthy crops. With severe sanctions hitting Russia, those fertilizers won’t make it to farm fields.
One expert told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that this looming fertilizer shortage will cause Americans’ grocery bills to soar to $1,000 or more a month.
Now, Biden himself has acknowledged that his sanctions won’t only hurt Russia.
During a Thursday news conference at NATO HQ in Brussels, he finally admitted the truth.
“With regard to food shortage, yes, we did talk about food shortages,” Biden said. “And it’s going to be real.”
He added, “The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia; it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well. … Both Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat, for example.”
Russia and Ukraine account for roughly 30 percent of the world’s annual wheat harvest, according to The New York Times. The two countries also produce 17 percent of the corn, 32 percent of the barley and 75 percent of the sunflower seed oil sold on the world market.
As Russian products are banned and Ukrainian fields have been turned into war zones, the crisis will be felt worldwide.
Biden claims he is going to address this issue.
According to Yahoo News, he said he spoke to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about trying to kick up food production in North America to make up the difference. But if neither Canada nor the U.S. can get enough fertilizer, the chances of boosting production will likely be a hard goal to achieve.
Once again, Biden seems to have just blundered blindly forward with his foreign policy without taking the real-world consequences into account. And — also once again — it will be the American people who suffer.
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