The President's Daily Brief - November 16th, 2023: Fossil Fuel Fraud, Erdogan’s Anger, & Assad’s Arrest Warrant

Episode Date: November 16, 2023

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief:   A new climate pledge emerges from a meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, but we dig into why China's promises on fossil fuels may not hold up. New details emerge about Iran’s involvement in the October 7th attacks as the Biden administration renews a sanctions waiver, granting Iran access to significant financial resources. The tension between Turkey and Israel escalates as President Erdogan intensifies his rhetoric. A landmark decision by a French court as it issues an arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, charging him with war crimes and crimes against humanity.   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 talking to me? Kayak. Got that right. It's Thursday, November 16. Welcome to the President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. In today's PDB, President Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, reveal a pledge to limit the use of fossil fuels. I'm going to provide some context that suggests it may be an empty promise from China. A little later in the program, a document found in a Hamas vehicle reveals new details about Iran's involvement in providing training.

to Hamas terrorists, and Turkey's president escalates his war of words against Israel. Finally, in the back of the brief, a French court issues an arrest warrant for a major player in the Middle East. But first up, the PDB spotlight. President Joe Biden met face-to-face with Chinese President Xi Jinping on yesterday afternoon. It was their first conversation in a year, which in itself is shocking when you consider the importance of the United States. the relationship. And let's just say they had a lot to talk about. According to reports, their conversation covered a broad spectrum of critical issues. The leaders touched on the future of Taiwan, the turbulent South China Sea, the Israel-Hamas conflict, Russia's assault on Ukraine,

the reopening of military communication channels, and the always-thorny subject of human rights. Now, so far, the meeting between the two seems to be short on concrete results, but one thing that has emerged from the summit is a climate agreement in which Biden and G agreed a greater commitment to renewables. The plan? Well, it's to expedite renewable energy development over the coming seven years, aiming to replace coal, oil, and gas with wind, solar, and battery storage. Environmentalists are cautiously. optimistic, but the agreement's lack of specifics, there's no concrete emissions reduction targets or a definitive strategy to phase out fossil fuels, well, that raises questions about its potential

impact. Now, why the ambiguity? Well, China's own energy strategy does provide a clue. The nation, notorious as the world's top coal consumer and polluter, is on track for a record year in coal imports. A staggering 182 million metric tons arrived in just the first five months of 2023, jumping almost 90% from the previous year. Yes, I said a 90% increase in coal imports in a year's time. It's a sharp contrast to the green promises made to the international community. Now, rewind to September 2021, President Xi then pledged at the UN that China would stop building coal-fired power plants abroad and curb its own fossil fuel reliance. Yet within a year of making that promise, the country completed 14 new coal plants overseas with dozens more in the pipeline.

Now domestically, China's green vows, they waver even more. Facing an energy crisis, it's all systems go for new coal projects and a resurgence of paused ones. Last year alone saw the green lighting of a colossal 106 gigawatts of coal power. Now let's do some back of the envelope math. One large coal-fired power plant equals one gigawatt of coal power. If China has greenlit 106 gigawatts of coal power, that equals a lot of coal power plants. That's right there some pretty good mathen. Putting it another way, China is permitting and building six times more coal plants than the rest of to the world combined. So domestically, well, yes, China's coal use is likely to continue to surge. Meanwhile, China reaps the benefits of the renewable revolution elsewhere,

dominating as the world's prime exporter of solar panels and lithium ion batteries. So as it capitalizes on this green trade, selling eagerly to Western markets, its own landscape remains shadowed by the smokestacks of coal plants. Okay, when we come back, we're learning new details about Iran's role in the October 7th attacks, just as the Biden administration renews a sanctions waiver, giving the Islamic Republic access to $10 billion from Iraq. Plus, Turkish President Erdogan continues his threats against Israel. I'll be right back.

Welcome back. The Biden administration renewed a sanctions waiver on Tuesday, that will give Iran access to roughly $10 billion in funds from Iraq. Okay, in case you think you just imagined me saying something completely crazy, let me repeat. The Biden administration renewed a sanctions waiver on Tuesday that will give Iran access to roughly $10 billion. Specifically, it will permit Iraq to continue purchasing electricity from Iran without incurring penalties from the U.S. for sanctions violations, and in turn it will free up roughly $10 billion in Iraqi payments for Iranian electricity that currently being held in escrow accounts in Iraq.

Now Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said the four-month waiver extension was signed because the administration doesn't want to cut Iraq off from a key source of energy, and he said he's confident that the funds can only be accessed by Iran for humanitarian purposes. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? The decision is likely to draw intense criticism. much like the $6 billion freed up to Iran through a similar waiver back in September. Now, that waiver was granted as part of the Biden administration's deal to free American hostages, but many feared that it allowed Iran to spend a greater portion of their domestic funds

on terrorist proxy groups operating throughout the Middle East, such as Hamas. Now, because, as they say, money is fungible, let's pretend you're going to give me $10 billion But the contingency is I can only spend it on wings and beer. Okay, no problem. But now I can take another $10 billion that I've got sitting in some other pot that I was going to have to use on wings and beer. And now, yeah, I can spend it on ammunition because money's fungible. The latest waiver extension is particularly puzzling

in light of the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas and the wave of Iranian-backed proxy attacks on U.S. troops. that have followed. These attacks, almost 60 of them since 17 October, have injured at least 56 U.S. service members to date, and they show no signs of abating. So it's an odd optic at best, right? Iranian proxies are conducting drone and missile attacks on U.S. personnel and facilities, and the White House says to itself, hmm, now would be a good time to announce that we're giving the Iranian regime fat stacks totaling 10 billion. It also comes, as we're learning more regarding the Iranian regime's role in the deadly 7 October attacks against Israel.

A report by CNN, based on documents recently obtained by the IDF from a Hamas computer in Gaza, suggests Iran was providing technical training to Hamas, teaching their fighters how to build their own weapons in the run-up to the terrorist attacks. The documents reportedly include a letter from a Hamas commander sent to Iran in July, requesting that members of his unit be included in an Iranian scholarship program. That sounds innocent enough. But the program is used by the Iranian regime to train students from allied countries in military tactics, including explosives engineering, in an effort to make these allies less dependent on Iran's military resources. While CNN said they could not independently confirm the documents, it does follow a long pattern

for Iran. Sticking with the topic of repressive regimes, we turn to Turkey, where President Erdogan is adding his voice to the chorus of dictators who are moralizing about the Israel-Palestine conflict. In a speech to the Turkish parliament on Wednesday, Erdogan lambasted Israel as a terrorist state that's leveraging Western support to commit war crimes. In his diatribe against Israel, Erdogan also defended Hamas as simply a political party that is responding to Israeli aggression. Ah. He went even further, claiming that Israel's response to the 7 October terrorist attack, now constitutes the, quote, most heinous attack against women and children in all of history. Now, it's worth noting that Turkey has been deeply involved in the Syrian Civil War for years,

where they've shown very little regard for civilian life. In 2019, Amnesty International slammed their military actions in the region as shameful and accused the regime of committing war crimes, including summary executions. We should also remember that Turkey, like Iran, has strong ties to Hamas. Erdogan has met with the terrorist group regularly and allowed its leaders to run operations from an office in Istanbul for the better part of a decade. While Turkish officials claim they only host the terrorist organization's political wing, Hamas has been accused of planning attacks on Israel from within Turkey's borders. Since the 7 October attacks, Hamas leader Nishmil Hanyi has reportedly been in close contact with the Turkish government. In the past, the leader of

Hamas has split his time between living in Doha, Qatar, and Istanbul, and may have been in the country when the 7-October attacks were launched, though those reports remain unconfirmed. Turkey's relationship with Israel has long been strained. However, they did resume full diplomatic ties back in August of 2022, but in the wake of the 7-October attacks, whatever progress was being made between the two countries has obviously deteriorated. in a fiery response to Erdogan's anti-Israel remarks, an Israeli opposition leader said that Israel, quote, won't take lessons in morality from President Erdogan, a man with an appalling human rights record.

Ah, that seems fair. It's like having to listen to Hamas, claiming that the IDF is committing war crimes, or the always entertaining moralizing from Vladimir Putin, who has also talked of his concern of what he views as Israeli war crimes. Now, when all the dictators and terrorist groups line up against you, I suspect you know you're doing something right. Coming up in the back of the brief, a French court is used an arrest warrant for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. I'll be right back. This episode is brought to you by Ultima Replenisher.

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and crimes against humanity during Syria's brutal civil war. In particular, the warrants stemmed from two devastating chemical attacks on Damascus suburbs back in August 2013, attacks that left over a thousand dead and inflicted injuries on countless others. The Syrian president wasn't the only person included in the charges. Warrants were also issued for two high-ranking Syrian military officials, as well as the president's brother. These warrants deal with just a frathing. of the crimes alleged to have been committed during Syria's 12-year civil war. Since 2011, the country has witnessed over 200 chemical assaults, with deadly agents like sarin and chlorine gas,

turning civilian areas into death traps. The UN's chemical watchdog has pinned several attacks directly on Assad's regime, highlighting the systematic use of chemical weapons on civilian populations, which, as you can imagine, is a blatant disregard for international law and human dignity. Despite the charges, the reality is that Assad and his associates are unlikely to ever face their day in court in Paris. Yet the trial will proceed without them. It's a symbolic gesture that the world has not turned a blind eye to their actions. Oh, I should also mention that the only reason Assad is still in power is that Iran and Russia came to his rescue during

the Civil War and they continue to provide him with military and economic support. And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief for Thursday, 16 November. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. I'm Mike Baker. I'll be back later today with the PDB afternoon bulletin. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings,

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