President Joe Biden on Thursday said food shortages would affect the United States as a result of sanctions imposed on Russia.
“With regard to food shortage, yes we did talk about food shortages, and it’s gonna be real,” Biden said during a press conference after a NATO summit in Brussels, Belgium, with other world leaders.
“The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia,” he added. “It’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.”
Part of that price is paid in bread.
As Biden put it, “Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat.”
According to the Observatory for Economic Complexity, Russia and Ukraine produce 25% of the world’s wheat supply. Neither of the countries exports wheat directly to the U.S., but their absence from the market is expected to strain the global supply, leading to increased prices.
Russia has already suspended wheat shipments to former Soviet republics in Central Asia.
The President also mentioned that he and other leaders had a “long discussion in the G7” about the need to “increase and disseminate” food production. He said the U.S. and Canada would aim to increase their wheat production to balance the drop in supplies.
“In addition to that, we talked about urging all the European countries, and everyone else, to end trade … limitations on sending food abroad,” Biden said. “We are in the process of working out with our European friends what it would take to help alleviate the concerns relative to the food shortages.”
This warning of a “real” food shortage is a reversal from comments made earlier in the week by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said Americans were unlikely to face a food shortage.
“While we’re not expecting a food shortage here at home, we do anticipate that higher energy, fertilizer, wheat, and corn prices could impact the price of growing and purchasing critical fuel supply, food supplies for countries around the world,” Psaki said at a press briefing at the White House.
“Early estimates from the World Bank suggest disproportionate impacts on low and middle-income countries, including in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia,” she added.
The White House Press Secretary said that Biden’s administration was closely working “with [its] partners in the G7, multilateral development banks, the World Food Programme, and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization” to try and mitigate food shortages that might be caused by the sanctions.
After Biden’s comments, a Twitter account from the Republican National Committee shared a 2020 clip that showed then-candidate Biden downplaying the chances of food shortages in the U.S. due to COVID-19.
While speaking in a virtual town hall in May 2020, Biden said that America did not have food shortage problems.
“We don’t have a food shortage problem — we have a leadership problem,” Biden said in a shot to then-President Donald Trump.
“We have plenty of food,” Biden added at the time. “It’s being plowed under… You’re euthanizing cattle and pigs. They’re out there making sure that they’re pouring thousands of gallons of milk into the ground. It’s not a food shortage. It’s a lack of leadership.”
As war rages in Ukraine, many Americans, especially those living from paycheck to paycheck, are feeling the financial burden.
Food prices were already soaring in the U.S. before the conflict as inflation hit 7.9% in February, a month that encompassed only the first four days of the Russian invasion.
Gas prices, also expensive to start, spiked even higher after the invasion, with the U.S. banning imports of Russian oil and natural gas.
Experts are now warning that Americans should brace themselves for even more financially challenging times ahead.
“It comes [at] an absolutely horrible time for American consumers because we’re looking every day at inflation almost reaching 10%,” Dan Varroney, a supply chain expert and founder of Potomac Core, told FOX Business. “Last month’s figures were close to 8%. And that means that consumers, including those that are living paycheck to paycheck, are going to pay more for food.”
President Biden is currently in Europe meeting with various European leaders about the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the topic of another round of sanctions against Russia is on the docket.