🇺🇸🌾🚜 Iran War Cost Spike Straining Farmers Ahead of Midterm Elections

US farmers, long one of Donald Trump’s most loyal constituencies, are increasingly worried by the Iran war as soaring fertilizer and fuel prices hammer them just as they are about to start planting crops for the year.

“Is the war going to be short term or is it going to be drug out?” asked Pam Johnson, who has a family farm with her two sons, growing corn and soybeans in northern Iowa. “The longer it goes, the harder it’s going to be on just everybody.”

Farmers are anxious about how they will pay for or even obtain fertilizer for their fields as well as the cost of fuel for tractors, combines and other farm equipment, said Johnson, a past president of the National Corn Growers Association who remains in contact with producers across the country.

The new financial strain on American agriculture driven by the war — if it persists — could have significant ramifications for the struggle over control of Congress in midterm elections later this year. Farmers are already dealing with disruptions in export markets spurred by the president’s tariffs and have been wrestling for years with higher costs for essential supplies.

That potentially gives Democrats an opening to make appeals to voters in Iowa, a state that just a decade ago was considered swingy.

Added expenses for farmers eventually also would likely accelerate food inflation, potentially exacerbating widespread public frustration with the high cost of living even as Americans also pay more for gasoline as a consequence of the war.

Fertilizer prices have surged, particularly for nitrogen-based urea that’s heavily used by corn growers concentrated in the Midwest. Spot urea prices climbed 28% in just two weeks, hitting the highest level since early in the Ukraine War. Attacks on Middle East shipping are threatening supplies, with a third of the world’s fertilizer shipments passing through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the United Nations.

Diesel fuel, meanwhile, is up 33% since hostilities began through Sunday.

🔗 https://archive.ph/PPpa8

🚫🍽🥖 Middle East war risks pushing 45 million more people into acute hunger

“Beyond the immediate fallout in Lebanon, the conflict has also caused major knock-on effects on global humanitarian operations; we are really feeling the pain on this,” WFP Deputy Executive Director Carl Skau told reporters in Geneva. “Our supply chains may really be on the brink of the most severe disruption since COVID and the Ukraine war back in 2022.”

Mr. Skau said that relief operations are suffering from longer shipping times and an increase in costs as the escalating violence in the Middle East continues into its third week, sparked by Israeli and US strikes on Iran and retaliatory attacks by Tehran and allied groups.

Amid ongoing hostilities – including Iranian counterstrikes against Gulf states and Israeli attacks on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon – WFP’s shipping costs “are up 18 per cent so far and we have thousands of trucks on the roads every day,” Mr. Skau explained. “These are now running on much more expensive fuel, due to the oil prices.”

He deplored the impact of higher costs which “mean that we can buy less food or provide less cash to beneficiaries”.

The agency has been forced to cut food rations for people in famine conditions in Sudan and is only able to support one in four acutely malnourished children in Afghanistan – currently the world's worst malnutrition crisis.

Another major concern is related to the disruption of global fertilizer markets “just as sub-Saharan Africa heads into a planting season”, Mr. Skau said.

A quarter of the world’s fertilizer supply comes through the Strait of Hormuz, “which is now at a virtual standstill”, he explained.

Mr. Skau stressed that the spike in global food and fuel costs “could leave millions of families priced out of staple foods, particularly in import-dependent countries, like sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.”

“If the Middle East conflict continues through June, an additional 45 million people could be pushed into acute hunger by price rises,” he warned.

“This would take global hunger levels to an all-time record and it's a terrible, terrible prospect.

🔗 https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/03/1167147

🇺🇸🇻🇪🇲🇦 White House says US seeking fertilizer from Venezuela, Morocco

The Trump ​administration is seeking other sources of fertilizer ‌amid the ongoing Iran war's shipping constraints, including from Venezuela and possibly Morocco, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said ​on Tuesday.

"We've ... established licenses for Venezuela to produce ​more fertilizer. We've had discussions with Morocco," ⁠he said on CNBC's "Squawk Box" program, calling it "an ​insurance policy against disruption" for U.S. farmers.

"I'm not ​saying that we can eliminate what disruption there is so far, but we can minimize it," Hassett told ​CNBC in the interview.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/world/china/white-house-says-us-seeking-fertilizer-venezuela-morocco-2026-03-17/

🇩🇪✊ Germany’s The Left party is facing a major internal crisis after adopting a motion rejecting Zionism and accusing Israel of “apartheid”, “settler colonialism” and “genocide”.

Efforts to soften the wording were voted down.

Brandenburg’s Anti-Semitism Commissioner Andreas Büttner has now quit, warning of deep divisions over Israel and anti-Semitism.

🔗 Europa

🇺🇸 Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino to retire from federal service, sources say

Over the past years, Bovino, a longtime Border Patrol official, has been serving as the chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector along the California-Mexico border. But he quickly became a leading public face of the Trump administration's aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration after he was deployed to cities across the U.S., to oversee sweeping and often controversial immigration raids.

Bovino and his team of green-uniformed Border Patrol agents were dispatched first to the Los Angeles area in June of last year. There, they conducted immigration arrest operations that sparked local outcry, including at Home Depot parking lots.

In September, Bovino and his agents were deployed to Chicago, followed by Charlotte, New Orleans and ultimately, Minneapolis. In all those cities, their operations came under scrutiny, with local residents and leaders denouncing them as heavy-handed and indiscriminate. Border Patrol agents under Bovino's command were captured on video stopping people to ask for their immigration status, including because of the person's accent.

Bovino's decision to retire comes roughly two weeks after President Trump announced he had tapped Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who had empowered Bovino and made him a direct report.

With Markwayne Mullin, the GOP wants to soften the approach to immigration and reduce the amount of deportations ahead of the Midterms, worried about the public's perception.

🔗 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gregory-bovino-border-patrol-to-retire-sources/

🇮🇱⚔️🇮🇷 Israel is publicly urging Iranians to revolt, but privately admits protesters would likely be “slaughtered.”

Israeli officials say Iran’s regime is “not cracking” and will “fight to the end”

If protests erupt, the IRGC “has the upper hand” and would crush them.

Despite this, Israel still hopes for an uprising and wants the U.S. ready to support it.

U.S. officials now also acknowledge protesters face extreme risk from armed security forces.

Source: WaPo

📝: Considering the amount of munitions the U.S. and Israel have spent on the war up to this point, it is questionable how capable their air forces are to provide air support without running out of bombs to fire.

🔗 Clash Report

🇺🇸🇸🇾❌🇱🇧❗️ — The United States has encouraged Syrian Transitional Government to consider deploying forces into eastern Lebanon to help disarm Hezbollah, according to sources briefed on the matter.

However, Damascus is reportedly reluctant, citing fears of being drawn deeper into the regional war and inflaming sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shias

📝 The idea was first discussed by U.S. and Syrian officials last year, said two of the sources - both Syrian officials - and two others familiar with the discussions. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

🇺🇸❌🇬🇧 After complaining that no NATO ally wanted to help him in the war with Iran, Trump says Keir Starmer was the only one who wanted to help but rejected his offer because America "has already won".

Trump also claimed there's "no threat" to aircraft carriers despite the fact that satellite images confirmed the USS Abraham Lincoln withdrew more than 700 km (435 miles) from the Gulf of Oman to the western half of the Arabian Sea near the border with Yemen, after one of the carrier's escorts was attacked by Iranian gunboats.

I was disappointed because Keir was willing to send two aircraft carriers after we won, because essentially there’s no threat to the aircraft carriers right now.

I like him. I think he’s a nice man, but I’m disappointed.

🔗 Clash Report (@clashreport)

🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 Trump on Iran:

If we left right now, it would take them 10 years to rebuild. But we’re not ready to leave yet.

We’ll be leaving in the near future—in pretty much the very near future.

📝: The U.S. no longer seeks to regime change Iran and is following the Israeli policy which is to bomb Iran to the point where it becomes a failed state like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, stuck in perpetual sectarian violence.

🔗 Clash Report (@clashreport)

🇺🇸 Illinois primary day is this Tuesday, March 17th! We've endorsed a slate of 15 candidates who are rejecting AIPAC and the Israel lobby to fight for an anti-genocide, pro-peace agenda!

Cast your vote to make sure your voice is heard!

🔗 AIPAC Tracker

🇹🇷❌🇮🇱 Turkey condemned Israel's assassination of Ali Larijani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and de-facto ruler of Iran!

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan:

Israel’s political assassinations—especially those targeting Iranian state officials and political figures—are actions that fall outside the normal laws of war and are truly illegal activities.

These must also come to an end as soon as possible.

🔗 Clash Report (@clashreport)