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U.S. President Donald Trump's Energy Dominance Council plans to host a liquified natural gas summit in Alaska on June 2, where it hopes to announce that Japan and South Korea have committed to the long-pursued Alaska LNG project to ease American gas shipments to Asia.
Since his return to the Oval Office, Trump has positioned hydrocarbons as the backbone of the U.S. energy portfolio and also as a lever for exerting America’s geopolitical influence on the global stage.
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The tariffs announced by the Trump Administration at the beginning of April have cast a shadow across international energy supply chains. The new policies were delayed for ninety days less than a week later, and the much-feared shortages and price hikes haven’t yet materialized. Nevertheless, the mood in the industry remains pessimistic.
In May, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced that companies based in Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are dumping solar panel cells at low rates into the U.S. market while receiving subsidies from the Chinese government, setting the stage for the imposition of tariffs on all parties involved.
This edition of the Global Take features Dr. Ariel Cohen's appearance on i24 News, where he analyzes developments in the talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul as President Trump visits the Middle East.
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Governments are seeking to leverage AI investment to accelerate societal and economic development and bootstrap to the next level of economic development. While some observers express concerns that the growth of AI could widen the gap between the developed world and emerging markets, it also provides an opportunity for energy-rich developing countries to technologically leapfrog. Few regions are better equipped to exploit this uranium and AI boom than the world’s largest exporter of uranium: Kazakhstan.
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Dr. Ariel Cohen joins Belsat TV to discuss President Donald Trump's impact over the first 100 days of his second term in office.
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The United States and Ukraine signed a long-awaited deal on April 30 to give the U.S. priority access to Ukrainian critical minerals and other natural resources. After months of acrimonious disputes and negotiations over a ceasefire/peace between Russia and Ukraine, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is now touting the agreement as a signal to Russia that “the Trump Administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine,” NBC reported. If that is the case, the signed agreement may be a step in the right direction. But consistent American military and diplomatic aid, in coordination with European allies, will be necessary to clinch a sustainable solution to the 11-year-old war.
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President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to attain peace between Russia and Ukraine have already prompted questions about the future of Russian energy exports, the country’s main cash cow, and whether the door will open to joint projects between Russia and the E.U or the U.S. Whatever progress is made in any negotiations, will be difficult if not impossible to go back to pre-2022 arrangements. Doing so isn’t necessarily in the E.U.’s or America’s strategic or economic interests.
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Just as President Volodymyr Zelensky was preparing to arrive in Washington D.C. on Friday, February 28th to sign an unprecedented US-Ukraine agreement on strategic minerals, Vladimir Putin came up with a proposal of his own, involving joint development with the U.S. of rare earth metals, aluminum, and hydro power in Russia. It’s trolling of 99th level.
At face value, this could be seen as a step towards renormalizing U.S.-Russia trade relations. President Trump is entertaining the notion of economic rapprochement but isn’t ready to commit yet. Economic cooperation comes after the cease-fire or peace accord in Ukraine, not before. On February 27th, only a couple of days after Putin’s proposal, Trump extended wide-ranging sanctions on Russia. Meanwhile, US Russia watchers are telling this author that Putin’s offer is nothing more than a troll to counter the Trump-Zelensky mineral deal.
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In a far-reaching move set to take effect on March 4th, President Donald J. Trump imposed a 25% tariff on all foreign imports from Canada, a close ally and the US’ largest energy trading partner, as well as on Mexico.
Additionally, a 25% tariff was announced on imported steel and aluminum. Canada is the largest supplier to the U.S. for both. Aluminum and steel are vital for many products, including energy infrastructure components. Canada, understandably, is not pleased. Ottawa signaled that "everything is on the table" in response, potentially including cutting off energy supplies. Given Canada’s central role in U.S. energy security, imposing further tariffs could lead to volatility in American energy markets, price increases, and a broader reshaping of geopolitical alliances.
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As international tensions grow, scientific developments become more crucial than ever to creating war-winning technologies. There is a reason the Manhattan Project was kept under strict security measures – and even then, there were leaks.
Beginning in the 1940s, Stalin’s USSR used intelligence to steal America’s atomic secrets and develop nuclear weapons. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviets ran a massive spying operation to gain access to submarine, computer, and space tech. In preparation for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and as the conflict continued, Russia ramped up its intelligence gathering and influence activities around the world. Recently, concerns have once again been raised that Moscow has had an unobstructed path to obtaining information about cutting-edge nuclear technology from the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN).
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President Trump has floated the idea of relocating Gazans to other Muslim countries so that reconstruction can get underway and recently noted that he is “not confident” in the durability of the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas while underscoring Gaza’s potential. “Some beautiful things could be done with it …,” he said, cautioning against allowing Hamas to prevail. “They didn’t exactly run it well. It was run viciously and badly.”
The president’s insights are compelling. Hamas continues to violate the ceasefire terms by refusing to release hostage Arbel Yahud, provide updates on all hostages and account for the Bibas family, which includes two captured little boys, Kfir, 2, and Ariel, 5, along with their mother, Shiri.
The Gaza Strip desperately needs a complete break from the tunnel-infested terrorism haven it became under Hamas. At the same time, Israel cannot tolerate any repeat of the murderous chaos that terrorists wreaked on Oct. 7, 2023. Nor can it countenance a continuation of the shelling and attacks on Israelis that Islamist terrorist organizations have conducted from the strip since 2006.
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Russia and Iran signed a mutual defense and security cooperation pact on Jan. 17 — just days before President Trump’s inauguration. Both nations are primary opponents of the U.S., demonstrated by Russia’s war against Ukraine and Iran’s attempts to assassinate Trump, its regular proclamations of “Death to America, death to Israel!” and its backing of terrorist proxies Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis and Hezbollah.
This new pact represents the next move in a long game to shift the global balance of power away from the U.S. and its allies. Although the new administration is coming into office with many pressing agenda items, the Moscow-Tehran partnership needs quick attention before it leads to threats, bloodshed and more war.
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On Dec. 3, China banned exporting critical minerals such as gallium, germanium, and antimony to the United States. This came in the wake of the Biden administration's announcement of new restrictions on the sale of chips and specialized chip-making machinery and software to China the day before. This exchange is merely the latest round in the ongoing battle for the raw materials that control the future of energy and tech. China and the U.S. are in a wrestling match over mineral dominance that is more critical than the 20th-century struggle for the control of oil.
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The Caspian Sea, vital to Eurasia’s economy and environment, is shrinking at an alarming rate. The declining water level in the sea is one visible consequence of a larger regional water crisis faced by the C5 nations of Central Asia—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. This water crisis threatens the more than 82 million people who call the largely arid region home.
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The U.S. Treasury has announced sanctions against Russia’s Gazprombank, a lending institution inexorably linked with Russia’s state-owned gas giant Gazprom, along with fifty other small and medium-sized banks and forty securities registrars. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) also issued a warning of sanctions risks for financial institutions joining Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages, which Moscow stood up in an attempt to work around having been excluded from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Communication (SWIFT), the main global network to wire funds.
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Clean energy shares in the United States experienced a significant decline following Donald Trump’s election to a second term. The WilderHill Clean Energy Index fell by 6.7%, with solar companies like Sunnova Energy International Inc. and Sunrun Inc. dropping as much as 51% and 29%, respectively. The timing of this downturn is unfortunate, as green stocks plummeted while the flagship United Nations Conference on Climate Change, COP29, convened in Baku on November 11. Although it is currently unclear which Biden-era environmental initiatives Trump intends to eliminate and how those included in the Inflation Reduction Act will be affected, green technology firms are bracing for impact.
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As Iran is spending billions of dollars funding Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi militias in Yemen, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, and Katai’b Hezbollah in Iraq, the recently released Energy Information Administration (EIA) report on Iranian petroleum exports stands out as a sobering reminder that the Obama-Biden on-and-off sanctions on Tehran have failed. In fact, as the sanctions against the Kremlin over its invasion of Ukraine suggest, sanctions alone are no panacea against aggressor states. U.S. trade policy frequently fails to stop flagrant sanctions violations.
Last week saw a landmark summit of the BRICS group of nations, a nine-country economic bloc led by Moscow and Beijing, which drew representatives from 36 countries, including 22 heads of state.
Held from Oct. 22 to Oct. 24 in the Russian city of Kazan, the event focused largely on “de-dollarization”—the idea of phasing out the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency and preferred medium of global exchange.
At the 2024 BRICS summit, China claimed that its advances in Green Tech serve as a “valuable reference” for the bloc and the globe. While Beijing talks a good game about its investments in renewables as an engine of domestic and global economic growth, the realities of China’s sluggish economy suggest otherwise.
Earlier this month, China observed Golden Week, a period with several cultural and political holidays in early October, including the 75th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's rise to power. Usually, such an occasion would be celebrated with much fanfare, but this time things were muted. As Golden Week approached, the Chinese economy struggled despite early stimulus measures announced by the CCP. These included outstanding mortgage rate cuts, recapitalizing banks, new measures to encourage mergers and acquisitions, and other economic stimulus provisions.
Following the latest United Nations General Assembly, the UN Summit of the Future adopted the “Pact for the Future,” a document filled with ambitious pledges to tackle climate change, peace and security, and global inequalities. Secretary General of the UN Guterres proclaimed the pact a “’once in a generation’ opportunity to renew multilateral cooperation”.
The pact revolves around accelerating the transition to renewable energy and achieving net-zero emissions by mid-century. However, this ambitious vision for the future risks losing sight of the present and does not do enough for the 760 million people worldwide – 80 percent of whom are located in Sub-Saharan Africa, who do not have access to even basic electricity. The immediate energy needs of developing countries are being sidelined in favor of long-term ideals and platitudes.
In Central Asia, everyone appears to be moving to secure riches and interests. Japan has just conducted an investment summit with the Central Asian states to develop economic opportunities, China’s Xi is expanding business ties, the EU is inaugurating a new strategic summit, and Vladimir Putin will be visiting in November. The world understands Central Asia and the role trade plays at this strategic pivot point, except, seemingly, Washington
The 2024 NATO Summit, to be held this week in Washington, D.C., marks the trans-Atlantic Alliance’s 75th anniversary. NATO, which came to the U.S.’s aid after 9/11 and deployed a contingent to Afghanistan, guarantees not just strategic cooperation across the Atlantic but also bolsters the economic prosperity of its member states. America’s abundant energy resources pair perfectly with Europe’s scarcity of oil and gas to create a win-win partnership, enabling Europe to avoid total energy dependence on authoritarian suppliers in Russia and the Middle East.
In a time when the United States and the Western allies appear weak on the international scene, restoring deterrence needs to be Job One as the NATO 75th anniversary summit begins today in Washington, D.C.
In the recent presidential debate, more energy went into bickering over who deserves to be president, and even their golf scores, than about what America and the West should do next to secure our collective democratic capitalist future against challengers like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran.
There is nothing more important than the security and defense of the realm. The president of the United States has the unenviable position of serving as commander-in-chief, often without having the appropriate background and experience, while simultaneously addressing a myriad of other pressing political, economic, and social issues.
It has been over six months since the Houthis, a Yemen-based Iranian-backed militia, began attempting to hold the world’s economy hostage by attacking civilian shipping in the Red Sea, a vital trade corridor between Europe and Asia. It was quickly recognized that the Houthis had to be stopped. The West responded with “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” a multilateral force to protect civilian shipping and attack Houthi aggressors.
Although oil prices stabilized, marine insurance rates returned to a higher equilibrium than before the start of hostilities, and input shortages that plagued manufacturers like Tesla, Volvo, and Suzuki were resolved, it does not appear that the Houthis (or their Iranian paymasters) have been contained. After a months-long, exhausting, and inconclusive running battle with the US Navy, the Houthis managed to sink a second cargo vessel in mid-June. Maritime shippers are suffering declining volumes of traffic and insurance markets are unlikely to be reassured by the presence of military assets.
Achieving a green future is a worthy and necessary aspirational goal. However, realizing aspirations requires sound strategy and a willingness to learn and reformulate policies and plans in the future.
