Month: June 2025

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

Al Jazeera recently published a detailed piece about how India, Pakistan, and Iran are all nowadays wooing the Taliban, which is true, but they left out how Russia and China are as well while also making no mention of the newfound pressure that the US is placing upon the group.

In the order that they were mentioned, Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar held an historic call with his Afghan counterpart in late May, the first between officials of their level in over a quarter century.

He thanked him for condemning April’s Pahalgam terrorist attack that led to the latest Indo-Pak conflict and for not falling for fake news meant to stir trouble between them. They also discussed expanding bilateral ties. India and Afghanistan have shared threat perceptions of Pakistan, the first due to the Kashmir Conflict and the second as regards Islamabad’s alleged attempts to subordinate Kabul. Closer cooperation between them thus advances their interests but prompts deep suspicion from Pakistan.

Segueing into that country’s interests, Pakistan accuses Afghanistan of harboring terrorist groups, which the Taliban denies. The improvement of their ties upon alleviating their resultant security dilemma could pioneer a Central Eurasian Corridor from Pakistan to Russia and beyond. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi organized a meeting between their top diplomats in Beijing in late May to that end, but it’s unclear whether any tangible progress will be achieved. Mutual mistrust might ultimately prove insurmountable.

Moving along to Iran, that country had long-standing tensions with the Taliban over water rights and migration, but its Foreign Minister just visited Tehran in an attempt to help resolve them. Whether or not that happens is another story, but Iran has an interest in sincerely doing so due to the newfound pressure that the US is placing on the Taliban, which will be touched upon later on in this analysis. The point is that ties appear to be thawing, and at the very least, tensions might remain manageable for now.

Iran’s ties with Afghanistan sharply contrast with Russia’s, which recently removed the Taliban’s terrorist designation, just hosted a delegation at the recent Russia-Islamic World Forum in Kazan where they signed several agreements, and has a grand geo-economic vision for Afghanistan that was detailed here. The aforesaid overlaps with Pakistan’s earlier mentioned connectivity plans, which partially explains their rapprochement in recent years and could position Russia to mediate between it and Afghanistan.

On that topic, China is already mediating as was written above, but Russia objectively seems to be closer to the Taliban nowadays than they are given the latest agreements that were just signed. In any case, China is poised to play a major role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, though continued security threats stemming from ISIS-K appear to have thus far hampered the implementation of its plans. Nevertheless, these plans still remain in place, and it’s possible that they could be speedily implemented in the future.

That’s precisely what the US wants to prevent, however, thus explaining the newfound pressure that it’s placing upon the Taliban through Trump’s demand to reobtain control over Bagram Airbase and Rubio’s implied threat to redesignate the group as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (possibly only if it refuses). Pakistan’s possible collusion with the US will be pivotal in determining what happens. If the US succeeds, then it could reshape South Asian geopolitics, much to India’s detriment and possibly also China’s.

Given the renewed interest that major stakeholders – India, Pakistan, Iran, Russia, China, and the US – have in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s return to the international spotlight might portend a new era of cooperation and competition between them. The main variable is whether or not the Afghan-Pakistani security dilemma is soon alleviated and on what terms if so, such as Eurasian-mediated (Russia and/or China) or American-coerced, which will in turn place these dynamics on very different trajectories.

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

The Department of Energy has canceled 24 clean energy demonstration projects worth nearly $3.7 billion, citing concerns over financial viability, insufficient return on taxpayer investment, and a failure to meet the energy needs of Americans.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the decision on May 30, describing the awards as hastily approved in the final days of the Biden administration and misaligned with the Trump administration’s energy and economic priorities. The cancellations come after an internal review ordered earlier this month under a new departmental policy aimed at increasing accountability and rooting out waste in federally funded energy programs.

“The Trump administration is doing our due diligence to ensure we are utilizing taxpayer dollars to strengthen our national security, bolster affordable, reliable energy sources and advance projects that generate the highest possible return on investment,” Wright said. “Today, we are acting in the best interest of the American people by cancelling these 24 awards.”

According to a department list reviewed by The Epoch Times, the terminated awards include high-dollar carbon capture and industrial decarbonization projects involving firms such as ExxonMobil, Calpine, Heidelberg Materials, and Kraft Heinz. Sixteen of the 24 awards were signed between Election Day 2024 and Inauguration Day 2025.

The rescinded projects span a range of industries and regions, including glass manufacturing facilities in Ohio, carbon capture efforts in Texas and California, and decarbonization initiatives at food production sites nationwide. The largest award canceled was a $500 million grant to Heidelberg Materials for a carbon capture project in Louisiana.

The move follows a May 15 memorandum issued by Wright titled “Ensuring Responsibility for Financial Assistance,” which established new standards for evaluating financial assistance programs. Under the policy, DOE is now requiring detailed financial, technical, and legal documentation from all recipients and reserving the right to modify or terminate awards that fail to meet economic or national interest benchmarks.

Earlier oversight efforts had flagged the risk of poorly vetted loans and grants under Biden-era programs.

 

A November 2024 report from the DOE’s Office of Inspector General warned that the Loan Programs Office, which saw its authority balloon from $17 billion to more than $400 billion under the Inflation Reduction Act and other legislation, was under pressure to rapidly distribute funds before key deadlines expired. The report highlighted “significant risks” to taxpayers from rushed decision-making and insufficient vetting, particularly given the volume and complexity of applications.

In two cases, the inspector general said DOE had already canceled nearly $400 million in grants awarded to entities with suspected ties to foreign adversaries. The watchdog urged the department to expand its applicant vetting capabilities and avoid what it described as a “pay and chase” model, where funds are disbursed before due diligence is complete.

President Donald Trump has issued multiple executive orders aimed at boosting fossil fuel production and limiting public funding for climate initiatives or ones involving DEI mandates. The administration has also directed federal agencies to review all discretionary grants issued under the Biden administration, with a focus on clawing back funds where possible.

In the case of the DOE, Wright said his department has already requested further documentation from 179 award recipients whose combined funding totals more than $15 billion. These reviews are ongoing and could result in further cancellations.

Following days of frenzied speculation that OPEC+ may go so far as to start another global price war similar to the Saudi armada in March 2020 which eventually sent WTI crude prices to a negative $45, however briefly, today’s decision was positively tame: OPEC+ agreed to surge oil output for the third month in a row, despite mounting reservations from key member Russia, doubling down on a historic policy shift that has sent crude prices sinking.

According to a statement on the OPEC website, the cartel of oil-exporting nations and several hangers on agreed during a video conference on Saturday to add 411,000 barrels a day to the market in July. The hike matches increases scheduled for May and June, marking a radical reversal from defending prices to actively driving them lower, largely in response to Kazakhstan chronically and unapologetically breaching its quota.

“OPEC+ isn’t whispering anymore,” said Jorge Leon, an analyst at Rystad Energy A/S, who previously worked at the OPEC secretariat. “May hinted, June spoke clearly, and July came with a megaphone.”

Officials said the supply hikes reflect Saudi desire to punish over-producing members like Kazakhstan and Iraq, recoup market share lost to US shale drillers and other rivals, and satisfy President Donald Trump’s desire for cheaper oil, even if it leads to – well – cheaper oil, and even steeper budget deficits for the country that exports 10 million barrels of oil per day and has an all-in breakeven price around $90.

The hikes will offer temporary relief to consumers as the northern hemisphere goes into its peak demand season, while also helping central banks grappling with stubborn inflation. Yet the market impact creates financial peril for oil producers around the world, which could be facing a period of prolonged low prices, followed by much higher prices as producing infrastructure suffers from disuse. 

What was most notable about this latest production hike is that, according to Bloomberg, several members expressed reservations during Saturday’s meeting about the speed with which OPEC+ was raising production. Russia, Algeria and Oman wanted a pause in the increases, according to delegates.

The difference in views between Moscow and Riyadh, the cartel’s two most powerful members, will come back into play on July 6, when they meet again to discuss output levels for August.

In April oil briefly tumbled to a four-year low under $60 a barrel after OPEC+ first unexpectedly announced they would bolster output by triple the scheduled amount. The move came even as faltering demand and Trump’s trade war were already crushing the market.  This was followed by a second hike announcement one month later, and now a third one.

While Brent futures have since recovered to trade near $64 a barrel, the IMF estimates the Saudis need prices above $90 to cover the lavish spending plans of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The kingdom is contending with a soaring budget deficit, and has been forced to cut investment on flagship projects such as the futuristic city, Neom.

However, thanks to earlier Reuters leaks, the markets is likely to take Saturday’s agreement as positive because ahead of today’s announcement “there were some concerns of a larger increase,” said Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at UBS, referring to Reuters reports that OPEC+ was considering even bigger output hikes.

Meanwhile, if Riyadh’s strategy is to discipline the cartel’s quota cheats through a “controlled sweating,” it doesn’t seem to be working. Kazakhstan, the most blatant offender, continues to exceed its limits by several hundred thousand barrels a day and has publicly stated that it has no plans to atone. Energy Minister Yerlan Akkenzhenov told reporters on Thursday that the country can neither enforce cutbacks on international corporate partners, or dial back at state-run fields. Which is why we recently speculated that if one or more of its peers wishes to teach Kazakhstan a painful lesson, then the Caspian Sea pipeline which carries most of Kazakh oil exports courtesy of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, is probably sweating bullets right now.

With Kazakhstan chronically abusing its OPEC+ quota, and with 80% of Kazakh oil reaching the world via the CPC pipeline, what are the odds CPC gets Nordstreamed? pic.twitter.com/xgQ0QGlkMJ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) May 23, 2025

But while Kazakhstan has so far refused to budge, the price downturn is taking a clear toll in America’s shale oil heartlands, where companies like Diamondback Energy Inc. say production has peaked, despite Trump’s promise the country would “drill, baby, drill” in a new energy boom.

With the hike scheduled for July, OPEC+ will be just over halfway through a road map for reviving 2.2 million barrels a day of output it had idled in recent years, a process that was previously planned to last until late 2026 yet which depends largely on how much of a stimulus China will finally unleash. The group will decide in the coming months how quickly to restore the remainder of supplies it’s still withholding from the market.

For some analysts, increasing supply is entirely logical. Demand will rise over the next few months in the US as drivers take to the roads for summer vacations, and also in the Middle East, where peak use of air conditioning means some barrels will be consumed domestically.

“Fundamentals in the right-here, right-now are strong — inventories are very low,” Amrita Sen, director of research at consultant Energy Aspects Ltd., said in a Bloomberg television interview before the meeting. “It is a good time for OPEC+ to add barrels to the market, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”

Nonetheless, further price losses may be in store. JPMorgan forecasts that Brent futures will sink into the “high $50s” later this year as the cartel’s hikes contribute to a global supply glut of more than 2 million barrels a day.