The President's Daily Brief - January 17th, 2023. Surprise, Surprise? Returning to the Wheat Wars, Ukraine’s Wheat Didn’t Get to the Nations It Was Supposed To

Episode Date: January 17, 2023

It’s January 17th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got five briefs for you this morning that are shaping America — and the world. Today we’re going to focus our foreign briefs mostly on Europe. First, we’ve got an update on the Wheat Wars. Turns out that Ukraine’s wheat did not end up with poor nations as planned. Second, we pivot to the Energy Wars in Europe, to include a brewing diesel crisis and a fight over coal in Germany. Next, we come home to America for a brief on the growing Biden Intel Scandal — another day, another round of documents found at his home. Then we head to El Paso, Texas where New York City’s Mayor was there speaking about the migrant crisis, and he said to them do not come to my sanctuary city. We’ll talk about that. Then, we wrap up our main briefs with a focus on Electric Vehicles. Sales are growing worldwide but not in one place in the U.S. — they might ban those cars starting in the year 2035. Later, we close out the podcast with a study on the health differences between men and women when it comes to obesity. ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. A good day to you, ladies and gentlemen. I've got five briefs for you this morning that are shaping America and the world. Today we are going to focus our foreign briefs mostly on Europe. First, we've got an update on the wheat wars. Turns out that Ukraine's wheat did not end up with poor nations as planned.

Second, we pivot to the energy wars in Europe to include a brewing. diesel crisis and a fight over coal in Germany. Next, we come home to America for a brief on the growing Biden intel scandal, another day, another round of documents found at his home. Then we had to El Paso, Texas, where New York City's mayor was there speaking about the migrant crisis, and he said to them, do not come to my sanctuary city. All right, we'll talk about that. Then we wrap up our main briefs with a focus on electric vehicles, sales are growing world

wide, but not in one place in the U.S., they actually might ban those cars starting in the year 2035. Later, we close out the podcast with a study on the health differences between men and women when it comes to obesity. But before we get to that, we got to get started with this. This morning's PDB kicks off with an update to the wheat wars. That, of course, was the focus of many PDB briefs over the summer and fall about how to get Ukraine's trapped wheat out into the international marketplace,

all to avoid a global famine. After months of negotiations, Ukraine and Russia reached a deal called the Black Sea Grain Initiative, and that allowed weak cargoes to pass safely through three Ukrainian ports that had previously been blockaded by the Russian Navy. So at the time, the promise for this deal was that the grain would get to poor nations like Kenya, Lebanon, and Sri Lanka. Well, six months have gone by since that deal was finalized, and we've got some updated data on where exactly that week,

went. Well, as it turns out, the wheat didn't get to where we were told it would go. As reported by the commodities data firm Kepler, Ukrainian exports to Africa were down 75% last year. Meanwhile, exports to Europe, those were up 60%. In other words, rich European countries snatched up that Ukrainian wheat, not the poor countries in Africa or the Middle East, as we were promised. Consequently, that required poor nations to buy from other suppliers, not Ukraine, and those purchases tended to run at least 10% or more than ever before. Now, if you're wondering what happened in this case, a couple of things going on. In Spain, for instance, they had a terrible wheat harvest due to drought,

so they grabbed up lots of contracts for cheap Ukrainian wheat. Meanwhile, buyers in France purchased Ukrainian wheat because it was so much cheaper than their own domestic supplies. And that's because Ukraine has fewer environmental regulations as compared to other European nations. So Ukrainian farmers can undercut their European competitors. In fact, Ukrainian wheat runs about 15% cheaper than the wheat grown in the rest of Europe. So sorry to say poor countries got left out in the cold last year when it comes to wheat. Although, don't worry, U.S. taxpayers are helping those poor countries to buy that more expensive wheat on the international market. You might recall last April when the Biden administration emptied out something called the

Bill Emerson Humanitarian Trust. It's a Department of Agriculture Fund that had $670 million available to help buy commodities in case of an emergency. Biden authorized all of that money to be used to buy wheat for Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. So as ever to my U.S. listeners, you have helped finance the food supply for poor nations. Congratulations, I suppose. But as it turns out, you're also helping those rich nations in Europe too. All right, my friends, let's continue our journey in Europe this morning. Energy traders throughout the European continent are scrambling this morning to buy all of the Russian diesel that they can.

That's because they're trying to beat a deadline. In just under three weeks from today on February 5th, European companies and traders will no longer be allowed to buy Russian diesel. It's part of a sanctions package that was adopted by European countries to penalize Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Well, unfortunately, this presents a problem for the Europeans. They do not refine enough diesel supplies domestically, so they got to go out in the market and buy it. So with this February 5th deadline approaching, European traders are scrambling to do two things. First, buy and ship as much a Russian diesel as they possibly can all to fill up their reserve tanks. To the point, purchases are now averaging 770,000 Russian barrels a day.

That is up from 500,000 barrels in normal times. But secondly, European buyers are worrying about where to get their new supply of diesel. with analysts predicting price spikes and even shortages. So to help explain that and what they're thinking about doing, let's do a touch of math. So as I just mentioned, Europe historically gets about 500,000 barrels per day of Russian diesel. So where shall they get 500,000 new barrels once that's gone?

Hmm. Well, the Chinese have raised their hands saying that they can supply around 400,000 barrels a day, but even still that will leave a shortage of about 100,000 barrels. Now, if you're scratching your head as to why the Chinese are stepping up here, because as you probably know, China is not a major producer or refiner of oil, well, here's what's going on. Over the past year, China has dramatically increased its purchases of Russian oil, and they relaxed a law that restricted the exports of oil, gas, and diesel.

In other words, what they're doing is buying all the, that naughty Russian oil. They're refining it, creating gas and diesel, and then selling it on the open market for a very fat profit, to include buyers now in Europe. In fact, the European country of Latvia just got its first big shipment of Chinese diesel earlier this month. So to just put this very plainly, folks, even after that February 5th deadline, Europe is still going to be buying Russian oil and gas. They're just paying a premium to China to sort of launder it for them first. One final thing to note, if we see a spike in diesel prices, it'll, of course, impact Europe and their economies, but probably other markets too,

perhaps even the U.S. So analysts aren't exactly sure how much or when. There's a lot of speculation on this at this point. But regardless, I'm going to keep you posted as this unfolds. And actually, it's going to start in early February, as I noted, but run through at least early summer. That's how long analysts are predicting it'll take for this new Chinese supply to fully connect itself to the European market. Next, we've got one more stop in Europe to talk about, and that is the very beautiful and lovely country of Germany. Although, I suspect not many climate activists are feeling so warm and fuzzy about that nation. And that's because over the weekend, tens of thousands of climate protesters tried to shut down the expansion of a coal mine in Western Germany. Protesters there attacked police.

At least 70 officers were wounded. That's according to the French media outlet AFP. The protesters had been gathered for weeks in this West German town, although it wasn't much of a city. Residents had largely abandoned it over the years. And yet, that ghost village took on symbolic importance to the climate movement because the remaining buildings were going to be demolished for the mine's expansion. Well, police had anticipated that it could take probably weeks

to remove these protesters, some of them building tree forts, some of them buried themselves inside of houses. And by the way, the protesters included a very infamous climate activist, you might know her name, Greta Thunberg. Well, nevertheless, even though they thought it would take weeks, it didn't. The protesters eventually folded like a cheap suit. They cleared out on Sunday night after just a couple of days of fighting. That is, of course, except for two protesters who had dug a very small tunnel under one of the houses to hide themselves. But ultimately the police found them, and they were pulled out feet first. I'll tell you, they kind of looked like human gophers, if you find these pictures. For what it's worth, the coal mine is being expanded because, as the German government has acknowledged, they need

the coal to make up for the lack of Russian natural gas over the next five years or so. Meanwhile, their solar and wind industry continues to be wildly inconsistent. Recently, they had a record amount of wind supply, but in months gone by, they have record lows. And that issue certainly matches the great advice that we got from a listener in Nebraska a couple weeks back. He said that solar and wind involves energy harvesting, not production. And so sometimes your solar or wind harvest is good and sometimes not so good. At any rate, I suspect we're going to be hearing a lot more about this story to come in both Germany and elsewhere abroad. With that, ladies and gentlemen, let's take a quick break.

When we come back, I've got three more critical pieces of news for you. So enjoy that morning breakfast or commute to work, and we will be right back. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right. So I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong. Bro, Skycoin, way better than points. Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade.

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First up, over the weekend, White House lawyers announced that they had found more classified documents at Joe Biden's home in Delaware. Apparently, they found five more documents in total, one of which was in the garage by the Corvette, and four were in Mr. Biden's library. Regardless, this brings the known number of classified materials, to at least 25 pages, with some of those documents, of course, found in Washington, D.C. at Mr. Biden's former private office.

Plus, we now have two different locations inside Mr. Biden's home, the garage, of course, next to the Corvette, and the library inside the house. By the way, no word on if anybody searched the attic next to the Christmas lights. And maybe somebody should. Kidding. Kidding, sort of. In a related development on Friday, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, representatives announced that they had launched a new investigation, not just into Mr. Biden's

mishandling of intelligence, but also into the Justice Department's handling of this inquiry. And that's because this one is not being handled according to normal protocol. At least that's the allegation. Let me explain. So as I noted earlier, Mr. Biden's attorneys are being allowed to handle the search for additional documents. But according to Republicans and honestly common sense, this investigation should be handled by independent investigators, hopefully at the FBI, not attorneys being paid by Mr. Biden and perhaps finding ways to hide or otherwise destroy evidence. That's the fear, anyway. Second, we have an issue of security clearances.

Mr. Biden's attorneys say that they have them, but here's something that you might not know. Just because you have a clearance, that doesn't mean that you get to view any and all classified. materials. You have to have something that's called need to know. In other words, let's say when I worked at the CIA, I was focused on North Korea. Now, obviously, I had no need to know secrets about, say, Egypt or Mexico. Now, I could ask to learn about or see the material related to those two countries, but I had to justify that request with my need to know. So Biden's attorneys are now reading and looking at stuff that either they're not clear to see or they have no need to know, unlike an FBI agent who's investigating a possible crime who does have that need to know.

By the way, I have a listener named Brian K. Who flagged this same issue for me. Awesome work, Brian. All right, all that aside, Mr. Biden's fellow Democrats are now starting to get pretty anxious about this growing scandal. Democrat Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan said in an interview on Sunday that it was, quote, certainly embarrassing, right? End quote. Yes, that is true. Meanwhile, Democrat Representative Adam Schiff of California said that the Biden documents may have endangered

national security. We also have comments from Democrat and socialist Elon Omar of Minnesota, saying that she was glad that there is a special counsel investigating this mess. That's probably not what Mr. Biden is hoping to hear. One final thing to note for. you. The White House confirmed that it, like others before it, had not kept a log of visitors to the Biden family home, nor his private office. So we have no idea who may have seen these documents in either location or had access to them. And that's a problem, at least if you're conducting a damage assessment, a fair one anyway. The bottom line is that I'm going to keep you posted on this very big story because, as ever, it's going to get worse. Next up this morning, the mayor of New York

went to America's southern border over the weekend, and he told illegal migrants in El Paso, Texas, that, quote, New York cannot take anymore. We can't. There is no more room in New York, end quote. He added that, quote, now is the time for the federal government to do its job and end the migrant crisis, end quote. He also highlighted that last year, his city spent $366 million dollars sheltering these illegals and expects the total to rise to $2 billion by June. Meanwhile, he complained, the federal government has only given him $10 million to deal with this mess as compensation. With that, let me now pivot to opinion and analysis on this one, because it's fascinating to see the mayor change so radically in his views, especially in the

city with the Statue of Liberty. Remember, when he was running for mayor just over a year ago, he said at one point during a debate that New York should continue to be a sanctuary city and that as mayor, he would refuse to cooperate with the federal government should they ask about immigration status on any resident. So here specifically is what he said in the fall of 2021. Quote, we will continue to be a sanctuary city, but for me, being a sanctuary city means more than just saying that we will not work with ICE or the federal government. We must go further. We must make sure that these undocumented New Yorkers are being given the support that they need so that their families no longer live in the shadows of the American dream, but they are part

of that dream. So it is somewhat strange to me that Mayor Adams and other sanctuary mayors are surprised or frustrated by what's happened. They put out the incentive to the world, and people responded to it. In other words, folks, choices and policies, have consequences. And it appears that Mayor Adams is certainly learning that the hard way this morning. Finally, I've got some news on electric vehicles presented in two parts. So here's the first part. According to the Wall Street Journal, global sales of electric vehicles reached a new high last year,

10% of total market share. Most of the increase was due to sales in China and to a lesser extent in Europe. About 20% of all new car sales in China are electric. and about 11% in Europe. The United States, for what it's worth, is about 5.8%. In terms of the most popular cars, the company Tesla still holds the crown in global rankings. The next two are Chinese manufacturers. One's called B-Y-D and the other is S-A-I-C.

All right, so that's part one of this brief. Here's the second part. Legislators in the state of Wyoming have announced a bill that would ban anyone in Wyoming from owning an electric vehicle. Starting in the year 2035, it would be unlawful for any resident of that state to own an EV, with lawmakers citing a series of reasons for that. For instance, they say the rural nature of their state makes charging stations too impractical and too expensive to both install and operate.

Next, they said, EV batteries cannot be easily recycled, and if they're disposed into dumps, that would create biohazards at Wyoming Land. fills. Plus, they said, by banning EVs and ensuring gas-powered vehicles remain for sale, that will ensure that the oil and gas industry remains vibrant here in America, and that includes in the state of Wyoming, which relies heavily on the industry for jobs and taxes. So it's unclear how much support this bill has or if other states might copy it, but I'm maybe watching this one for developments, because the backlash will be really fascinating to watch on this. And if you'd like to watch on this one, too, the bill is called SJ 0-004, phasing out new electric

vehicle sales by 2035. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, we conclude your morning brief. But I've got one more thing before I let you go. We'll be right back. Get the most out of your vehicle with GM genuine parts and AC Delco original equipment. The only parts designed, engineered, tested, and back. by General Motors. You can find your perfect fit for most makes and models and choose from three tiers of parts, including GMOE or gold and silver aftermarket parts. Visit gmparts.com for more information. Who cares about your poops? Ollie does? That's why Ali's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fibergummies your

kiddos will love. Find it all on Ali.com. That's OLLLY.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Welcome back to the PDB folks. I've got one more thing before I let you go. About a week ago, there was a really fascinating study out of York University in Toronto, Canada, looking at the issue of obesity. Now, that is certainly a challenge that we face here in America,

with about 40% of us struggling with obesity. That's according to the CDC. Now, some groups of fellow Americans, it's an even higher percentage than that. Estimates of black women's obesity rates, for instance, are upwards of 60 to 75%. But what researchers at York University found was that there are very important differences in how obesity affects men versus women. And they started with this very interesting observation. Most studies about obesity using animals, in other words, lab rats, well, those studies tend to use male rats, because female rats are generally resistant to some forms of obesity-related diseases,

like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. So the folks at York wondered, why is that? And would that same thing be true in human females, too? So off to the labs, they went with their humans and their human cells. And a research paper published a week ago, they noted that as women put on fat, they tended to grow more blood vessels to supply the expanding fat tissue, whereas men grow a lot fewer of these blood vessels. So they dug into this issue and discovered that in women, the cells that make up the blood vessels called endothelial cells, well, those tend to lead to very little inflammation, but in men, the process created far greater inflammation, even with fewer blood vessels. Now, interestingly, that was true even when they took those cells out of the bottom.

and place them in petri dishes. In other words, there was no outside exposure to, say, testosterone or other factors. So that might explain, researchers said, why women tend to avoid some of the more terrible effects of obesity while it hits men harder. It's in the genes, and it's all about inflammation. So I offer this to all of us for a couple of reasons. First, there is a difference between men and women, and you can't undo or unchange that. I know that that is apparently controversial to say these days, but it is true.

Second, I think that this study underlines the growing body of evidence that inflammation causes all sorts of terrible things, from cancers to poor immune system responses. So if you haven't explored eating foods with anti-inflammatory properties, you might want to explore it. I know that my doctors encouraged me to do so when I was going through a series of surgeries and hospitalizations years ago, and it actually served me pretty well. So if you would like, do some internet research for anti-inflammatory foods, build some meal plans that work best for you and your families. And by the way, that does not mean eating rabbit food all the time.

There's some pretty delicious stuff out there that also happens to be very good and anti-inflammatory. No rabbits require. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. as always we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here talking about our country and our world it's the creed of every good spy and every smart american it's from john chapter eight verse 32 and you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free good day