2026-06-25 ATS briefing¶

Food shocks¶

Food Shocks¶

Benjamin Selwyn's analysis of the 2026 fertiliser crisis reveals something more fundamental than a supply chain disruption. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has choked off a third of globally traded fertiliser, but the crisis was already latent in the system's structure.

Modern agriculture's dependence on synthetic fertilisers is not a technical choice but a competitive imperative. Since 1961, global fertiliser use has increased from 27 million tonnes to over 180 million tonnes. This is not simply feeding people — it is the material expression of a system where farmers must intensify output or be driven out. The input treadmill is built into the logic of accumulation.

The historical parallels are instructive. During WWII, the US imported three million tonnes of Chilean nitrate to maintain both agricultural output and weapons production simultaneously. The trade-off between feeding populations and waging war was softened by imperial extraction. Today, the same dynamic plays out through different mechanisms: China tightens export controls, the US expands domestic production, and poorer countries absorb the shock.

What makes the current moment distinct is the convergence of geopolitical conflict, energy markets, and agricultural inputs into a single systemic shock. States respond by securing national access at others' expense — export controls, production subsidies, trade restrictions. This is crisis management that stabilises output in the short term while entrenching inequality.

The biofuels push adds another layer. Under the guise of a green transition, governments are accelerating the diversion of land and crops toward fuel production. Global biofuel demand could rise 70% by 2030, redirecting maize, oil palm and sugar from food to energy. The contradiction is stark: a system that cannot feed itself without fossil fuels now burns food to replace them.

For revolutionary politics, the implication is clear. The food system's vulnerability is not a malfunction but a feature — one that will generate increasingly sharp crises as inter-imperialist rivalry intensifies and the ecological contradictions deepen.

War cover available for Hormuz trades but transit challenges remain: insurers¶

Source: Hellenic Shipping News

The Strait of Hormuz is reopening, but the insurance industry’s response reveals how deeply the normal functioning of global trade depends on political stability that capital itself cannot guarantee.

War risk cover is now available, with Chubb assembling a consortium offering up to $400 million in capacity. Premiums have fallen from wartime peaks but remain roughly 15 times pre-war levels. This is not simply a return to business as usual. The insurance mechanism has internalised the risk of state conflict, pricing it into every transit. The Lloyd’s Market Association warns that “stability and certainty” are the real prerequisites for recovery — and that these will take months to restore.

More revealing is the fragmentation of Western sanctions regimes. The US has issued a temporary waiver for Iranian oil sales, but the EU and UN have not. Meanwhile, the price cap on Russian crude diverges between the US ($60) and the UK/EU ($44.10). Insurers with cross-jurisdictional exposure — which is most of them — face contradictory regulatory demands that increase workload and legal risk. The American Club’s CEO puts it plainly: “The conflicting nature of the regulations … has increased our workload.”

This is not a technical hiccup. It is a structural contradiction of inter-imperialist rivalry playing out through the insurance sector. The US and its allies cannot coordinate even the basic rules for moving oil through a chokepoint they all depend on. Capital needs a unified framework to function; the competing states cannot provide one. For now, the cost is borne by insurers and shipowners. But if the Strait remains a site of unresolved tension, the real bottleneck is not mines or premiums — it is the inability of the major powers to impose a stable order on the circulation of commodities.

Container Shipping Market Overview & Outlook¶

Source: Hellenic Shipping News

The container shipping market is caught between two contradictory pressures: a surge in new vessel supply and the geopolitical disruption that is temporarily masking it. BIMCO’s analysis makes this tension explicit. Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens and Suez transits normalise, the underlying fundamentals point to overcapacity. Fleet growth of 12.7% by 2027, driven by record order books and negligible scrapping, will outpace demand regardless of which geopolitical scenario plays out.

What is striking is how the crisis has temporarily inverted the usual logic. Uncertainty over tariffs and bunker costs has triggered frantic front-loading of cargo, pushing the Platts Container Index up 80% in 30 days. This is not a sign of genuine demand strength but of capital trying to get ahead of disruption. The result is a short-term tightening that will unwind as soon as the situation stabilises — at which point the overhang of new ships will assert itself with force.

The resilience of global container demand — 5.1% growth in early 2026 — is real but fragile. Higher energy prices and tariff uncertainty are already weighing on consumer confidence. The intra-Asia and Europe-bound trades are holding up, but Persian Gulf volumes have declined. This is not a balanced recovery; it is a market being propped up by panic buying and route diversions.

For the shipping industry, the contradiction is clear: the very disruptions that are boosting freight rates now are laying the groundwork for a sharper downturn later. Once the geopolitical fog lifts, the overaccumulation of vessel capacity will become impossible to ignore.

UK prioritised ties with UAE over averting mass atrocities in Sudan, MPs to be told¶

Source: The Guardian

Here is the analysis for the hosts of Against the Stream.

The Guardian’s report on Nathaniel Raymond’s upcoming testimony to a parliamentary select committee presents a stark picture of British foreign policy in Sudan. The core claim is that the UK government, specifically the Foreign Office, knowingly suppressed intelligence linking the UAE and Ethiopia to the genocidal Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to preserve its bilateral relationship with the Emirates.

This is not a case of bureaucratic incompetence or a lack of information. The FCDO had the data. Raymond’s Yale lab tracked phones moving from RSF positions to UAE shell companies and Ethiopian military facilities. The FCDO even asked Raymond to release the data publicly because the UK government could not. The stated reason: “significant private pressure” from the UAE.

This reveals a clear hierarchy of priorities. The British state’s “economic, security and diplomatic relationships” with a Gulf petro-state were deemed more valuable than preventing the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in El Fasher. The FCDO official who questioned Raymond’s death toll of 60,000 was not fact-checking; they were managing a political liability. A high body count was a problem for the government, not for the perpetrators.

The contradiction here is not hidden. It is the normal functioning of a capitalist state. The UK’s role as “penholder” on Sudan at the UN Security Council was not a position of moral authority but a lever of influence, one that was willingly sacrificed to maintain access to UAE capital and strategic alignment. Minister Jennifer Chapman’s deflection—that “many countries are playing games”—is a confession dressed as a truism. It acknowledges the system of inter-state competition and imperial carve-ups while absolving her own government of agency.

For revolutionary politics, the lesson is grimly familiar. The British state will not act to stop mass atrocities when they conflict with the interests of its allied capital. The “invisibility” of the conflict, which Chapman laments, is a structural feature, not a media failure. The working class in Britain has no stake in the UAE’s accumulation or the FCDO’s diplomatic games. The only meaningful solidarity with the Sudanese people is one that breaks entirely from this logic of imperial prioritisation.

The upsurge in Bolivia¶

Source: Tempest

The Tempest piece frames Bolivia’s current rebellion as a direct response to Washington’s drive to secure resource extraction against Chinese competition. President Rodrigo Paz, a Trump ally, is the target of a nationwide uprising involving miners, Indigenous communities, farmers, and organised labour. The methods — road blockades, strikes, mass assemblies — are classic Bolivian forms of popular power, and they appear to be forcing a political crisis.

What is striking is the article’s insistence that this struggle is not merely local. It argues that Bolivia’s uprising can reshape the terrain for US activists, offering a model of independence from the corporate parties. This is a claim worth testing: does Bolivia’s rebellion actually open a new strategic horizon, or is it another explosive but contained cycle of resistance?

The material basis is clear. Bolivia sits on vast lithium reserves, critical for the energy transition. US capital needs access; Chinese firms are already entrenched. Paz’s role is to deliver for Washington. The rebellion is therefore a class struggle with an immediate geopolitical dimension — not inter-imperialist rivalry in the abstract, but a concrete fight over who controls the country’s resources and for whose benefit.

The deeper question is whether the movement can transcend its defensive character. Blockades and strikes can force a resignation, but can they build a political alternative? The article does not answer this, but the implication is that revolutionaries should be watching closely — and organising as if the answer might be yes.

Venezuela earthquake: at least 32 dead and dozens of buildings collapsed, says interim president – live updates¶

Source: The Guardian

The twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela are a natural disaster, but their impact is entirely mediated by the social and political catastrophe that has already hollowed out the country. The death toll of at least 32 and the collapse of dozens of buildings in Caracas are not simply geological events. They are the violent intersection of tectonic plates with a decade of economic collapse, hyperinflation, and the systematic degradation of the state’s capacity to maintain basic infrastructure.

The real story is not the earthquake itself, but what it reveals about the condition of Venezuelan society. Buildings collapse not just because the ground shakes, but because they were poorly constructed or left unrepaired. The lack of mobile phone signal deepens distress not because of the quake, but because the network was already failing. The 7.7 million who have fled the country are not earthquake refugees; they are refugees from an economic crisis that made survival impossible.

The political theatre is telling. Delcy Rodríguez, the interim president, thanks Donald Trump for his offer of aid. María Corina Machado, the exiled opposition leader, sends prayers from abroad. Both gestures are hollow. The US disaster response team will arrive, but it cannot rebuild a country whose oil infrastructure—the one sector that remains intact—is owned by foreign capital and managed for export, not for the Venezuelan people. The extended loss of power could hit crude output, the report notes. That is the priority.

This is a crisis of capitalism in its most advanced stage of decay. The state is a shell. The economy is a ruin. The people are left to fend for themselves. Earthquakes do not discriminate, but the societies they hit do. Venezuela’s tragedy is that it was already on its knees before the ground gave way.

FOMC Summary of Economic Projections, June 2026¶

Source: FRED Blog

The June 2026 FOMC Summary of Economic Projections reveals a central bank wrestling with a stubborn contradiction: inflation that refuses to die, and a labour market that refuses to break.

Core PCE inflation for Q4 2026 has been revised sharply upward from 2.7% to 3.3%. The 2027 projection also jumped from 2.2% to 2.5%. This is not a transitory blip. The Fed’s own median forecasts now admit that the inflationary pressures driving policy since 2021 are more deeply embedded than previously assumed. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is projected to hold steady at 4.3% through 2027, only dipping to 4.2% in 2028. That is essentially full employment by historical standards.

The response is predictable: the median federal funds rate projection for end-2026 has been hiked from 3.4% to 3.8%, with rates staying above 3% through 2028. The Fed is signalling that it intends to keep credit conditions tight for years, not months.

What this reveals is a system that cannot cool inflation without breaking the labour market, but also cannot let the labour market tighten without reigniting price pressures. The Fed is betting it can thread that needle. The projections suggest it is not confident.

For the broader capitalist crisis, the implication is clear. The era of cheap money is not returning. Fictitious capital that inflated on the promise of near-zero rates will continue to be repriced. The state is choosing to defend the currency’s purchasing power over asset values — a choice that will intensify pressure on overleveraged firms and households. The class struggle dimension is indirect but real: sustained high rates mean sustained pressure on wages, even as the cost of living remains elevated. The Fed is managing a contradiction, not resolving it.

How Trillionaires Are Really Made¶

Source: Project Syndicate

Here is the summary and analysis:

The article argues that Elon Musk’s trillion-dollar fortune is not a reward for technological genius but the product of a deliberate political project. Musk’s wealth, the author contends, is a bet that the US state will never allow its most strategically embedded monopolist to fail. The evidence is laid out plainly: decades of public subsidies totalling $38 billion, a tax code that allowed Tesla and Musk to pay almost nothing in federal income tax, and a Trump administration that awarded contracts, halted investigations, and gutted regulatory oversight while Musk himself dismantled government agencies.

This is a useful corrective to the Silicon Valley myth of self-made success. The author correctly identifies the public-private entanglement as the core mechanism: the US military and space complex now depend on Starlink, giving Musk structural leverage over the state. The trillionaire is not a market phenomenon but a political creation, cultivated across both Republican and Democratic administrations.

However, the article’s prescription is where it falters. It calls for a return to the reforms of the New Deal and Gilded Age—wealth taxes, antitrust enforcement, universal healthcare. This is the familiar liberal plea to save capitalism from itself. What is missing is any recognition that the concentration of wealth is not a bug in the system but its logical outcome under conditions of overaccumulation. The state did not simply “enable” Musk; it actively concentrated capital into his hands because the capitalist class requires monopolistic consolidation to maintain profitability in a stagnating global economy. The author wants to tame the oligarch without confronting the system that produces him. The real lesson is not that democracy can restrain capital, but that capital has already captured the state so completely that the distinction is becoming academic.