Tehran Times .. Iran buys U.S. wheat despite tensions Economic Desk
On Line: 02 March 2012 16:36 In Print: Saturday 03 March 2012
WASHINGTN (Reuters) - Iran has made purchase of U.S. wheat in an effort to build food stockpiles as the United States and Europe implement tough new sanctions against Iran.
The U.S. Agriculture Department reported on Thursday that Iran bought 120,000 tons of U.S. wheat — enough to fill two large cargo ships.
While not illegal, the deal caught traders by surprise as tensions mount between the West and Iran.
In the last month, Iran has bought nearly 3 million tons of wheat.
Iran has asked to import a million tons of wheat from Pakistan in a barter deal and also approached India. The Islamic Republic has also bought nearly 2 million tons in February from Russia, Germany, Canada, Brazil and Australia.
Traders were unable to confirm which grain company sold the wheat to Iran, but suspected major grain companies such as Cargill Inc, Bunge Ltd or Archer Daniels Midland. ADM and Bunge did not respond to inquiries seeking comment and Cargill said they do not comment on market rumors.
“Cargill, like a variety of other multinational companies with a global agricultural footprint, does sell agricultural commodities to Iran, as food is specifically excluded from the sanctions. We take great care to ensure that these sales respect both the spirit and the letter of the law,” Cargill spokesman Mark Klein added.
Iran last purchased U.S. wheat in 2009 but Thursday’s sale would be the largest U.S. wheat sale to the country since August 2008, a year when severe drought halved the country’s domestic crop and triggered record imports, according to USDA data.
U.S. Exporters Sell 120,000 Tons of Wheat to Iran, Most Since August 2008
By Whitney McFerron and Alan Bjerga - Mar 2, 2012 7:46 AM ET ..with links..
U.S. exporters sold the most wheat to Iran in more than three years, the government said, raising speculation that the Persian Gulf country may be boosting stockpiles after production from last year’s crop declined.
The sale of 120,000 metric tons of hard, red winter wheat is for delivery in the marketing year that ends May 31, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said today in an e-mailed statement. The sale was the biggest since Iran purchased 689,310 tons in a deal announced on Aug. 15, 2008. The U.S. hasn’t exported any wheat to Iran since a 54,267-ton shipment was sent in November 2009, USDA data show.
Iran’s production of wheat, the country’s biggest crop, fell to 13.75 million tons in 2011, 13 percent less than a year earlier, the USDA estimates. While Iran is facing international sanctions over its nuclear program, U.S. restrictions provide exemptions for “licensed exports of agricultural commodities,” according to the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a division of the Treasury Department.
“If Iran is concerned about commerce or shipping, any of those kinds of things, as a result of sanctions or something worse coming about, having adequate stockpiles of food in the country may be an appropriate thing to do,” Vince Peterson, a vice president of overseas operations for U.S. Wheat Associates, a trade group focusing on developing export markets, said. Oil Rises
The U.S. and Europe are moving to block Iranian oil sales and transactions with its central bank. The U.S. and Israel say they haven’t ruled out using force to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The Islamic republic says its atomic program is peaceful and legitimate under international agreements. Iran holds parliamentary elections tomorrow.
Crude-oil futures for April delivery rose 1.7 percent to $108.84 a barrel at 2:29 p.m. today on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 11 percent this year. Wheat futures slid 0.6 percent to $6.64 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after climbing as much as 0.7 percent.
Iran may have purchased as much as 2 million tons of wheat in the past month from international suppliers, Peterson said by telephone from Arlington, Virginia. Arkady Zlochevsky, the president of Russia’s Grain Union, said Feb. 22 that the country may deliver 1 million tons of grain to Iran. Industry officials in India also have discussed selling wheat to Iran, the Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 28, citing unnamed sources.
The U.S. exported $53.035 million in agricultural products to Iran last year, the least since 2006, USDA data show.
Huge 2011-2012 grain crop surpasses government and industry expectations
by: Kate Hodges From: PerthNow January 19, 2012 8:07AM
West Australian farmers have broken records to harvest the biggest grain crop ever in 2011-2012
WEST Australian farmers have broken records as the 2011-2012 grain harvest proved to be the biggest ever produced in the state, with more still to come.
Deliveries pushed the state total to 14.7 million tonnes, to surpass the previous record set in 2003-04 of 14,695,321 million tonnes.
General manager of operations at Co-operative Bulk Handling Ltd (CBH) Colin Tutt says that every region has exceeded CBH's expectations and their pre-harvest state forecast of 13.5 million.
"The knowledge that we have broken the record as the largest grain crop ever received in Western Australia is a fantastic achievement for everyone involved,” he says.
”We have seen significant rain delays, quality issues requiring extensive use of falling number machines, bins filling and closing, and challenges in moving grain to port.”
‘The 2011-12 harvest has really tested us all.”
The large harvest has also surpassed the forecasts made by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) in their December 2011 Australian crop report.
ABARES predicted a rise in winter crop production of 82 per cent, to the 14.7million tonne figure that has now already been reached.
However, Mr Tutt also warned that getting the big crop to port still poses a huge challenge for the industry.
He praised last year's $350 million investment by state and federal governments' in the grain transport network.
The harvest is expected to continue in some areas until the final weeks of January, with around another 200,000 tonnes expected to be delivered.
Iran buys 800,000 T Russian, Australian wheat Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:01pm GMT
HAMBURG Feb 23 (Reuters) - Iran has purchased about 800,000 tonnes of wheat this week comprising some 500,000 tonnes from Russia and 300,000 tonnes from Australia, European traders said on Thursday.
The purchases were made by the state agency Government Trading Corporation of Iran (GTC), traders said. This broke with the previous practice of private-sector wheat purchases.
"The Iranians had to pay premiums well over international prices," one trader said.
The purchases are in addition to around 1.1 million tonnes of wheat Iran bought in the previous two weeks. (Reporting by Michael Hogan; editing by Keiron Henderson)
The leaders of Israel may very well decide to launch a preventive strike against Iran’s nuclear program before the U.S. election on Nov. 6.
Sanctions are failing to persuade the Iranian regime to stop enriching uranium, and negotiations with members of the United Nations Security Council are bearing no fruit.
With these failures in mind, Israeli officials have intensified their rhetoric. The defense minister, Ehud Barak, told an audience this week at Israel’s National Defense College that although he is “well aware of the difficulties involved in thwarting Iran’s attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon,” he believes that “dealing with the threat itself will be far more complicated, far more dangerous and far more costly in resources and human life.”
Barak and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have argued that they don’t want to subcontract the task of attacking Iran’s nuclear program to the U.S. They think the Jewish state shouldn’t rely on others for its defense. Still, there’s a good chance they will postpone action until after the U.S. election, which is what the Obama administration says it wants them to do.
Hardest Line
Netanyahu would never say this publicly, but as a longtime watcher of the prime minister, I can say with reasonable surety that if Netanyahu were a more religiously observant Jew, he would be stuffing notes into the Western Wall right now, asking God to help Mitt Romney in Florida and Ohio. For Netanyahu, who is dispositionally and ideologically aligned with the U.S. Republican party, only a muscular conservative can be trusted to take the hardest line against Iran.
On the matter of Iran, however, Netanyahu would be wrong to root for Romney. Barack Obama is the one who’s more likely to confront Iran militarily, should sanctions and negotiations fail. He has committed himself to stopping Iran by any means necessary, and he has a three-year record as president to back his rhetoric. Romney has only rhetoric, and he would be hamstrung in many ways if he chose military confrontation.
Romney, who is visiting Netanyahu in Jerusalem this weekend, isn’t soft on the matter. He told a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention this week that, “A clear line must be drawn” with Iran: “There must be a full suspension of any enrichment, period. And at every turn, Iran must know that the United States and our allies stand as one in these critical objectives. Only in this way can we successfully counter the catastrophic threat that Iran presents.” He went on, “I pledge to you and to all Americans that if I become commander-in-chief, I will use every means necessary to protect ourselves and the region, and to prevent the worst from happening while there is still time.”
But Romney would face several critical challenges in a conflict with Iran that Obama would not:
-- Romney would be a new president in 2013, which could plausibly be the year for a preventive attack. He will be inexperienced, and his national security team will be new and potentially inexperienced as well. The learning curve on Iran is steep, and the Iranian regime knows it. The Obama team is deeply knowledgeable, appropriately cynical about Iranian intentions, and has had the time and confidence to make course corrections.
-- Romney, by all accounts, is uninterested in inheriting the mantle of President George W. Bush, who invaded two Muslim countries and lost popularity and credibility as a result. Romney, despite his rhetoric, is more of a pragmatist than Bush, and far more cautious. An attack on Iran is an incautious act, one that even Bush rejected.
-- The unilateral use of force in the Middle East for a liberal Democrat like Obama is a credential; for a conservative Republican like Romney, it could be an albatross. I argued in a previous column that Romney is more likely than Obama to oversee a revitalized Middle East peace process. That’s because conservatives are better positioned to make peace; liberals are generally better positioned to launch preventive strikes at the nuclear programs of rogue nations. We know that U.S. voters, and world leaders, allow Obama extraordinary leeway when it comes to deadly drone strikes, precisely because of his politics, character and background. (We are talking about a man, after all, who won the Nobel Peace Prize while ordering the automated killing of suspected Muslim terrorists around the world.) Romney will get no comparative slack.
-- Obama has done a superior job of building an international sanctions coalition against Iran. He has even received some cooperation from China and Russia. Before identifying Iran as the U.S.’s main adversary in the world, Romney named Russia. There’s no evidence to suggest Romney will do a better job than Obama has in negotiating with the Russians; no evidence to suggest that Romney will do a better job creating international support for stringent sanctions; and certainly no evidence he would do better in convincing allies that a strike against Iran is a necessity.
Choose Wisely
All of this isn’t to say that Obama, if he’s re-elected, will succeed in stopping Iran. The U.S. didn’t want Pakistan and North Korea to gain nuclear weapons, and they did anyway. The Iranian regime has flouted Obama’s demands, refused his offer to negotiate and challenged his naval deployments in the Persian Gulf.
But there’s no reason to think Romney would be more effective. Quite the opposite: Obama’s commitment to preventing an increase in the membership of the world’s nuclear club long predates the current crisis. He has devoted years to finding a peaceful solution to the Iran problem; other world leaders appreciate his patience, and would give him space to escalate next year, if he chooses.
Netanyahu should carefully consider Obama’s many strengths before wishing for a Romney victory.
F6, I wanted to post this over here, after I discovered that Jeffrey Goldberg had written that one also. Forgive me for the double post .. .but I just wanted them together on THIS particular important sensitive subject ...
(CNN) – Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak said the Obama White House has been the most supportive administration throughout the two countries' diplomatic relations on matters of Israeli security, in an interview to air Monday on "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
Barak -also a former prime minister of Israel - said that though historically administrations from both political parties have supported the Jewish state President Obama's support, security-wise, is unparalleled.
"I think that from my point of view as defense minister they are extremely good, extremely deep and profound. I can see long years, um, administrations of both sides of political aisle deeply supporting the state of Israeli and I believe that reflects a profound feeling among the American people," said Barak. "But I should tell you honestly that this administration under President Obama is doing in regard to our security more than anything that I can remember in the past."
Asked by Blitzer if the president has been more supportive than previous administrations' Barak said, "In terms of the support for our security, the cooperation of our intelligence, the sharing of sorts in a very open way even when there are differences which are not simple sometimes, I've found their support for our defense very stable."
Pressed if the Obama administration has been the most supportive ever, throughout history of U.S.-Israeli relations, Barak affirmed, saying that from his recollection of President Carter forward - "the defense relation between Israel and the United States are extremely stable and good."
Barak continued, "It doesn't mean that we agree on everything, it's very well known that differences between our government and the American administration about peace process about other issues, but I believe that in regard to world turmoil, in regard to Hezbollah, in regard to what happens in Syria, in regard to Iran, we basically – basically agree on the diagnosis. We don't agree on the prognosis on some of the issues."
Barak's comments come as presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney departs the country as part of a three-country tour that took him from London to Israel and now Poland as he campaigns for the presidency on foreign soil.
While on the campaign trail in the United States, Romney has repeatedly criticized Obama for a lack of support for Israel, a valued U.S. ally.
The Republican contender, however, has not proposed a drastically different set of policy standards for the Jewish state if he were to become elected. While abroad, Romney has largely declined to comment on his administration's policy telling reporters that he will not criticize U.S. international matters on foreign soil.
Barak – formerly the Israeli prime minister from 1999 to 2001 and leader of the Labor Party until last year – was appointed to the current administration under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2009.
Wolf Blitzer's full interview with Ehud Barak will air tonight during the 5pm ET hour of the "The Situation Room."
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