International Trade, or lack thereof

So last night Derrick Jensen talked at Ottawa University (in Kansas, not Canada), which was the first time I’d seen him in person (I hadn’t even heard of him six months ago). During the Q&A, I asked about something he wrote in Culture of Make Believe (scroll down a bit): he quotes a friend as saying that stopping international trade would be necessary for life on Earth to survive, but that “The politicians of the world aren’t about to ban international trade.” Well, they’re now starting to, specifically banning export of oil and food from many countries, and I wanted his comments, thoughts, whatever.

He hadn’t heard about that, saying, “I don’t believe it’s happening on a large scale, ExxonMobil wouldn’t allow it. It would be good for developing countries, but the IMF would kill them. (Salvador Allende didn’t last very long because of that, he didn’t want to be a colony.) Then the US military will move in.” He then qualified it by saying that he wasn’t dismissing me and what I was saying, but that he didn’t know anything about it, and asked me to send him more information. After poking through my previous links here, I realized I don’t have anything on that posted, so here it is.

[I’ll admit, I’d conflated edible oils and petroleum oil, and coal, and so myself overestimated the amount of embargo going on, but it’s still fairly significant, and likely to continue growing as things get uglier.]

I did post a bit previously on food shortages and rising prices, but things have progressed since then. As the supplier countries produce less, they eventually get to the point where they’re not producing enough for their own people, let alone to export. It’s also an attempt to slow domestic inflation, as in Vietnam.

India briefly banned edible oil exports, but then selectively lifted the ban in favor of the rice export ban: “India was one of the first countries to take measures to protect its domestic supplies by halting exports of all but basmati, which sells at a premium.”

Indonesia also bans rice exports, and Kazakhstan bans wheat exports.

"...export curbs imposed by China and Vietnam will spread as importing nations struggle to meet their needs. India and Egypt have curbed sales this year to safeguard local supplies."

And the ripples propagate. Pakistan hasn't banned exports yet, but they're scaling back, and upsetting the Afghans.

Thailand is now under pressure to limit its own rice exports, which is likely to have a huge impact, given that Thailand is the single biggest rice exporter. "The more countries impose export constraints, the stronger the pressures become for Thailand to do the same."

Though ostensibly temporary, China banned coal exports.

What else is coming?