I have covered the energy market's evolution through the Iran-Iraq War, from Chevron CEO Mike Wirth's early warnings about depleting buffers to Shell's CEO describing the diesel and gasoline squeeze that emerged as refineries pivoted to jet fuel. On July 31, ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Darren Woods also added the most analytically precise observation I have heard from an oil executive. There is a disconnect between crude prices and pump prices.
President Trump called Iran's leadership "unbelievably duplicitous" Monday after Iran said hours earlier it had no plans to hold direct talks with Washington, despite the U.S. leader's claim that negotiations would start today. read more
Investors looking to get a jump on White House announcements will be able to buy sneak peeks starting Saturday as a Trump family company starts selling special, fast access to the president's posts on social media read more
In Middletown and Bridgeport, police officials have pushed to contract a first-responder drone program they praise as a potentially life-saving tool. But residents of both cities took to their city halls ... read more
Capital One Financial has for the first time formally linked its decision to close the Trump Organization's bank accounts to anti-money laundering concerns, a significant disclosure made on Friday. read more
Trump snaps back to diplomacy, but Iran has other ideas
thehill.com
... President Trump is turning back to diplomacy in the Middle East, seeking a new deal with Iran that his administration failed to secure through waves of military strikes.
But the negotiations, which the president claimed would resume Monday, got off to a rocky start, with Iran denying any resumption in talks with the U.S., while pursuing a bilateral deal with Oman over shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz.
Diplomatic efforts have failed before, leading to a recurring pattern of the U.S. threatening massive kinetic action before it is called off, a scenario that has played out at least five times since April.
Gregory Brew, an Iran expert with the Eurasia Group, said the U.S. is both part and "outside" of the Oman-Iran talks, as Tehran doesn't recognize any U.S. role in managing the waterway, though the strait's reopening will depend on Washington ending its naval blockade.
"The Iranians have made it very clear they're not going to reopen the strait unless the U.S. de-escalates, unless the U.S. drops its blockade and likely provides other concessions," Brew said in an interview with The Hill on Monday.
Jason Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said Iran seems to be eyeing a deal with Oman that has the backing of other Gulf countries, which it would then use to pressure the U.S. to lift its naval blockade.
"Iran could present it not just to the Omanis and the other immediate neighbors but to the world as the only hurdle now to free and open shipping of the Strait of Hormuz is the U.S. naval blockade," Campbell said.
"In any agreement that it would reach, I think both from a sort of geopolitical outmaneuvering standpoint, and also just from a lack of trust in Trump, Iran sees little need right now to engage in talks with the U.S. despite Trump's persistent insistence that this is the case." ...
US has used 'virtually all' of its long-range precision missiles during Iran war, sources say
www.reuters.com
... The U.S. Army has used up much of its global stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military's readiness for future conflicts.
The missiles are principally the Army's surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used "virtually all" of these weapons, according to two of the sources.
The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.
The long-range munitions -- which cost more than $1 million each -- are an important part of the military's arsenal, allowing accurate strikes from a safe distance. U.S.-supplied ATACMS have played a key role in the war in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russia. The PrSM is a newer, more advanced generation that will replace the ATACMS, which have a shorter range.
The dramatic rundown in precision, long-range missiles means U.S. President Donald Trump may have to rely more on riskier, piloted bombing missions if he relaunches large-scale attacks on Iran.
The sources declined to say how many of each munition the U.S. had left. ...
related?
Contractors building border wall ordered to stop drilling wells in drought-stricken New Mexico
apnews.com
... The Trump administration has ordered construction crews on a border wall to stop drilling wells in drought-stricken New Mexico after ranchers said pumping groundwater needed to make concrete could threaten their livestock.
The order comes as crews across the southern border race to complete one of President Donald Trump's highest domestic priorities -- barriers that span four states and received over $46 billion in federal funding. Controversies have sprouted up in Texas and California, with border-town residents and environmentalists reporting a wide variety of issues with construction.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees border wall construction, has said water is needed to make concrete for roads, wall construction and dust suppression. Cattle ranchers in the area say the drought has already forced them to reduce their herd size.
"It would put us in an immediate catastrophe and having to do something with our livestock. I mean, it could potentially put some people out of business, us included," said Russell Johnson, a cattle rancher whose property runs along the border. ...
Kushner predicts much of the country will be 'back to normal' in June (April 2020)
thehill.com
From It's going to disappear' to WE WILL WIN THIS WAR' (March 2020)
www.washingtonpost.com
... As the coronavirus began to spread across the United States, President Trump repeatedly insisted that it was nothing to worry about. Two months later, the United States became the first country in the world with more than 100,000 cases, the economy has ground to a near standstill, and the virus has killed more than 1,000 people in New York state alone.
As cases increased and stocks tumbled, the president's attitude toward the threat of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, has evolved from casual dismissal to reluctant acknowledgment to bellicose mobilization. Below, we trace the winding path of the president's response to the virus, in his own words. ...
The Trump Pandemic (August 2020)
slate.com
... On July 17, President Donald Trump sat for a Fox News interview at the White House. At the time, nearly 140,000 Americans were dead from the novel coronavirus. The interviewer, Chris Wallace, showed Trump a video clip in which Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned of a difficult fall and winter ahead. Trump dismissed the warning. He scoffed that experts had misjudged the virus all along. "Everybody thought this summer it would go away," said Trump. "They used to say the heat, the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? So they got that one wrong."
Trump's account was completely backward. Redfield and other U.S. public health officials had never promised that heat would knock out the virus. In fact, they had cautioned against that assumption. The person who had held out the false promise of a warm-weather reprieve, again and again, was Trump. And he hadn't gotten the idea from any of his medical advisers. He had gotten it from Xi Jinping, the president of China, in a phone call in February. ...
"Complete incompetence:" Biden team slams Trump's COVID work (January 21, 2021)
arstechnica.com
... Just a day into office, President Joe Biden and his administration have unveiled a comprehensive, 200-page strategic plan and over a dozen executive orders and actions to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic currently rampaging across the country.
With the running start, the administration hopes to finally get control over the virus, which has already taken the lives of more than 408,000 Americans. The number of deaths is expected to top 500,000 next month, Biden said in an appearance Thursday to unveil his strategic plan.
"Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better," he said, calling his approach to the pandemic a "full-scale wartime effort."
Square one
The lag between people becoming infected, developing COVID-19, and succumbing to the disease will keep the numbers grim for weeks to come, regardless of new efforts put in place today. But the administration says it's also facing challenges from inheriting the work from the previous administration.
In remarks Thursday, Biden criticized the federal response so far: "For the past year, we couldn't rely on the federal government to act with the urgency and focus and coordination that we needed, and we have seen the tragic cost of that failure." ...
Related ...
How Iran is widening its pressure campaign to force US concessions
www.reuters.com
... Iran is betting it can outlast Washington by turning the Middle East's trade routes, shipping lanes and energy infrastructure into pressure points that steadily raise the cost of confrontation, according to Gulf officials and analysts.
Rather than seeking a decisive military victory, Tehran is pursuing a strategy of calibrated escalation aimed at widening the conflict without triggering full-scale war.
The goal, they say, is to convince the United States and its allies that containing the crisis is more costly than accommodating Iran's demands over the Strait of Hormuz.
The message from Tehran is that unless Washington accepts a new status quo that gives Iran a greater role in Hormuz, the conflict could spread beyond the Gulf.
By putting multiple maritime chokepoints and energy assets at risk, Iran believes it can strengthen its hand in any future negotiations.
"Iran, from the beginning, has tried to out-escalate the United States by stretching out its escalation options so that it always has something new to bring every week -- a new geography, a new type of weapon, a new type of target," Michael Knights of the Washington Institute told Reuters. ...
7nbsp
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BaFin to Deepen Deutsche Bank Money Laundering Investigation (Feb 2019)
www.financemagnates.com
...Deutsche Bank released a statement on Friday saying that BaFin, the German financial regulator, has extended the remit of an independent auditor examining the lender's role in the Danske Bank money laundering scandal.[emphasis mine]
The case stems from an ongoing investigation into the Danish bank's Estonian division.
After a whistle-blower sounded the alarm about the activity of certain customers, most of whom were from Russia and the former Soviet Union, in late 2018, it became apparent that Danske Bank's Tallinn-based operations were doing business with some less than scrupulous individuals.
It is alleged that the bank laundered around $225 billion from 2007 to 2014. If that is the case, it would potentially be the largest instance of money laundering ever uncovered.
Deutsche Bank falls into the mix as it acted as Danske Bank's main correspondent bank. According to the Financial Times, the German bank was responsible for facilitating $180 billion in suspicious transactions....
Deutsche Bank Offices Are Raided In Money Laundering Probe (Nov 2018)
www.npr.org
...In recent years, Deutsche Bank has been in the news not only for its prominence in the Panama Papers, but also for its ties to President Trump, in a tumultuous relationship that goes back some 20 years.[emphasis mine]
Trump and the bank once sued each other after he failed to repay a $300 million loan. And the author and reporter Luke Harding has described a "shuffle of money" between the bank's dealings with figures in Russia and its business with Trump. ...
Bessent says there may be deal Tuesday or Wednesday to open Strait of Hormuz with freedom of movement'
www.cnbc.com