US State Department Has Dire Warning on Food Supply | CLIP | Crossroads

Good evening and welcome to Crossroads. The US State Department has been warning of attacks on the global food system. It's warning that nations are working to manufacture this and that weaponization of hunger needs to be stopped. Secretary of State Antony Blinken actually laid out the risks during a speech at the United Nations Security Council. We're also increasingly seeing food being used as a weapon of war for leverage, political purposes in conflict after conflict. So we wanted to put the focus on both of these challenges. Rising food insecurity and at the same time the use of food as a weapon of war. Of course, the place where we're seeing this most immediately and most acutely is in Ukraine, where as part of Russia's aggression, it initially blockaded Ukraine's ports, in effect blocking the export of grains to the world that Ukraine had been a key country for providing. Now he took to X after that, formerly known as Twitter, and stated this a little more starkly. He said, Hunger and conflict are inextricably linked. We must stop the weaponization of hunger beginning with Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and its assault on the global food system. He said, Failure to act now will have dire consequences. What's important is that his statements were in the context of Russia, but they were not actually limited to it. He said the response to the so-called weaponization of hunger should start with Russia. Now he didn't address the bigger picture of countries, for example, like the Netherlands, restricting fertilizer and putting farmers out of business, or Ireland recently culling 200,000 dairy cows, or the many other countries that are restricting farmland. But regardless of where we put the blame, it does look like the global food supply is at risk. Now the context of Blinken's statement is important. It ties as well to the unexplained attacks on the grain supplies elsewhere right now. Let's go back in history a little bit, just recently. Russia ended its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative just last month, following the destruction of a bridge into Crimea. Both sides blamed the other. The deal was allowing Ukraine to export grain to other countries, despite the war. Now that was important because Ukraine is one of the world's largest exporters of grain and actually other foods as well. If those exports from Ukraine to the rest of the world were to stop, global food prices then become unstable. Some countries maybe can't afford it. And the Russia-Ukraine war then becomes something that affects the whole world. Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, noted the importance of the deal, and he said that the Black Sea Initiative previously had reduced food prices by over 23% since last year. Watch. The Black Sea Initiative, together with a memorandum of understanding on facilitating exports of Russian food products and fertilizers, have been a lifeline for global food security and the beacon of hope in a troubled world. At a time when the production and availability of food is being disrupted by conflict, climate change, energy prices and more, these agreements have helped to reduce food prices by over 23% since March last year. Now that Russia has cancelled that deal, we're going to see food spike in prices probably. The strategy is clear as well. Now turn to the war in Ukraine, right, turn it into an old school castle siege. You starve them out, you force them to the negotiating table, support for Ukraine in both military equipment and cash. Remember, it's coming from elsewhere. So the blockade is functioning as a partial siege against really the whole world supporting Ukraine. Russia followed its recent blockade with threats against any ship that tried to break through. But just last week, interestingly, ships actually ignored Russia and broke through anyway. The first was an Israeli ship and five others soon followed. That was partially because Russian blockade is, well, really the dancing on the edge of a knife right now. Ukraine is launching a drone strikes, drone strikes against Russian ships. Among the first to be sunk were a Russian tanker and also a 500 million dollar Russian warship. At least that's what's making headlines. The other big piece of that story is that the United States deployed a P8 anti-ship aircraft in the region to make sure the international ships are not fired on by Russia. Now for Russia, it appears simply that, you know, the grain blockade by sea is not going to be enough. It's not stopping that grain from Ukraine from reaching the outside world. The Ukrainians can just push right through it as we're seeing in the US military can ensure their safety. So the big concern now isn't just whether Russia chooses to attack ships and by extension risk retaliation from the US military. The big concern is that Russia will take other measures to destroy Ukrainian grain and food and prevent that grain and food from reaching other nations altogether. Shortly after Russia put the blockade in place, it launched attacks directly on grain supplies. It struck the Ukrainian grain port. It also launched an attack on a fuel storage in Odessa and on a plant that makes the sea drones. And then followed this with attacks on Ukrainian grain warehouses at a port on the Danube River. This took out the key infrastructure for grain in one of the main export routes, meaning that not only is the sea blockade in place, but grain exports through other areas are also under attack. It was about a week after those attacks that Secretary of State Blinken gave his statements at the United Nations Security Council when we showed earlier. And he followed this the same day, actually, on August 3rd, with an ex-post warning about the risk of famine. He posted a photo of himself meeting with International Rescue Committee CEO David Miliband in New York. And he wrote, Coordination across all sectors is essential to combating famine and global food insecurity. And he followed that two days later on August 5th with another post. He met with the Turkish foreign minister about the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace discussions. And he noted again, interestingly, the need to get grain supplies flowing through the Black Sea, and notably again, passed the Russian blockade. He wrote, Food should never be used as a weapon of war. And then something very strange happened. Just two days after Blinken met with the Turkish foreign minister, grain silos at a Turkish port exploded. At least 12 people were injured. The explosion was blamed on wheat dust and problems from transferring the wheat from the ships to the silos. It was written off as a coincidence. Nothing in particular to pay attention here. But the timing and the context, while they still managed to turn some heads, it's only natural. People don't know who to believe anymore. Both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war still blame the other side for destroying the Nord Stream pipeline, for destroying the bridge to Crimea. Both sides were alleging the other wanted to destroy the largest nuclear facility in Ukraine. And when grain silos just happened to explode following US discussions in that particular country, notably about threats to the food supply, well, people are going to naturally have their suspicions. And the story faded for a bit, but there's something else. There's another incident that just looks a bit too similar. Grain silos at a port in France have now caught fire. This is actually just today. The fires allegedly started on a conveyor belt, then spread to the four grain silos. Damage, they say, was minimal. But with France being the largest grain producer in the European Union, well, this is likely to turn some heads and raise some suspicions as well. In other words, it's becoming, again, a lot like the Cold War. Sabotage and rumors of foul play, these are the tools of the trade. And disasters, even if they may be natural, are only going to inflame suspicions. Russia is of course a suspect. So too are the globalist forces being blamed for things like anti-food policies all around the world, restrictions on nitrates and fertilizers, calls to cull cattle, a killing of chickens saying they have poultry diseases. Policies against farmland, the odd fires at the many, many food processors around the United States. There's a global air, plausible deniability on any attacks on the global food supply. And when there are claims of the weaponization of hunger on the line, well, the well-being of the world is on that grand chessboard of unconventional war and a conflict defined by deception.