MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Public hearing begins on Rogers' $26B proposed takeover of Shaw

The Canadian Press

Nov 7, 2022


The Open Rogers-Shaw deal heads to tribunal

The Competition Tribunal's public hearing on Rogers Communications Inc.'s $26-billion proposed takeover of Shaw Communications Inc. begins today as the telecom companies look to take the deal across the finish line. BNN Bloomberg's Paul Bagnell reports.

The Competition Tribunal's public hearing on Rogers Communications Inc.'s $26-billion proposed takeover of Shaw Communications Inc. begins today as the telecom companies look to take the deal across the finish line.

The hearing will aim to resolve the impasse between the Commissioner of Competition and Rogers and Shaw, and comes after weeks of talks and a short mediation period in late October that reached a stalemate.Sign up to get breaking news email alerts sent directly to your inbox

The Competition Bureau is one of three regulatory agencies that must approve the deal before it can close, in addition to the CRTC and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.

Last week, the competition watchdog doubled down on its intention to fully block the deal.

It reiterated its position that the planned sale of Shaw-owned wireless carrier Freedom Mobile to Quebecor Inc.'s Videotron Ltd. is not enough to eliminate its concerns that the merger would lead to worse services and higher prices for consumers.

The hearing is expected to last four weeks with oral arguments scheduled for mid-December.

Chief Justice Paul Crampton will be heading the Competition Tribunal panel during the hearing.

Rogers is hoping to close the Shaw deal by the end of the year, with a possible further extension to Jan. 31, 2023.

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It seems there is a common interest to settle the Rogers-Shaw dea...

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Rogers-Shaw deal headed to tribunal hearing

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Judge orders Rogers-Shaw parties to meet

BITCOIN’S HISTORY SHOWS ROOM FOR DROP TO $13,000

Akshay Chinchalkar, Bloomberg News 

 Nov. 10, 2022



A security cage protects the automated teller machine (ATM) of a cryptocurrency kiosk in Antwerp, Belgium, on Monday, June 6, 2022. Bitcoin has been trading around the $30,000 level for weeks now, defying predictions of a potential further decline but also struggling to gain upward momentum as the broader US market has also taken a beating. Photographer: Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg , Bloomberg


(Bloomberg) -- Bitcoin has further to fall before it finds a base to stage any recovery, if the depth of previous routs is any guide. While the crypto currency’s near 75% plunge from its 2021 high has already sent shock waves through markets, it would need to fall below $13,000 to begin matching the magnitude of previous drawbacks. How long it could take to get there is an open question: the current slump is longer than the average of past cases but still seven weeks shy of the tumble that ended in 2015.

©2022 Bloomberg L.P.

Crypto market rout deepens as Binance seen balking at takeover

Vildana Hajric and Muyao Shen, Bloomberg News 

Nov. 9,2022

The week’s rout in cryptocurrencies deepened, with Bitcoin tumbling to the lowest levels in two years, as Binance is seen increasingly unlikely to follow through on its takeover of FTX.com.

Bitcoin, the largest token by market value, fell as much as 11 per cent to US$16,705 on Wednesday, the least since November 2020. That brings this week decline to about 20 per cent. It reached a record high of almost US$69,000 a year ago. Just about every digital coin was struggling: Ether, Solana, Polkadot and Avalanche all dropped.

FTT, the utility token of the FTX exchange, collapsed by more than 40 per cent, following a more-than-70 per cent tumble on Tuesday.

“The market is now in full fear mode,” said Ilan​ Solot, co‑head of digital assets at Marex Solutions. “Because Pandora’s box has been opened with this Binance-FTX deal and now everyone’s looking to see if there’s more dominoes and what else needs to be liquidated.”

At issue is Binance executives finding through due diligence that the gap between liabilities and assets at FTX is likely in the billions, and possibly more than US$6 billion, said a person familiar with the matter, who wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the matter. Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng “CZ” Zhao had stunned the crypto world on Tuesday with an announcement that his firm was moving to take over FTX.com, which suffered a liquidity crunch after Zhao announced that he was selling a US$530 million holding of FTX’s native token. 

Investors are on edge about spreading contagion given the pivotal role FTX and its co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried played in the industry.

“Since I entered the crypto industry in 2016, very few periods tested its market infrastructure and participants like the last 24 hours did,” said crypto hedge-fund manager Dan Liebau of Modular Asset Management.

Noelle Acheson, author of the “Crypto is Macro Now” newsletter, pointed out that Bitcoin, which typically holds up better than other tokens during times of stress, was seeing greater declines than some other altcoins. That potentially points to institutional investors bailing “as a result of the drama.”

“It’s a sign that this is a blow to confidence in the industry as a whole, from the investor’s point of view,” she said in an interview. “From the industry’s point of view, it’s also a pretty steep blow, much more so than what we saw with Three Arrows Capital and with the Terra implosion. This is sitting harder.”

The sense of dread that swept across clients of fallen crypto exchange FTX.com was so intense that they pulled out US$430 million worth of Bitcoin in the space of just four days. FTX had more than 20,000 Bitcoins going into Sunday, according to data from CryptoQuant. That fell to almost zero by Wednesday after fears about FTX.com’s financial health led customers to flee.

FTT, the utility token of the FTX exchange, has collapsed by more than 75 per cent in the past 24 hours and was trading around US$4.20, according to CoinGecko data. 

“The letter of intent is non-binding, which means that further issues could still arise if CZ/Binance decide to back out of the deal,” said David Moreno Darocas, research associate at CryptoCompare.

The letter of acquisition intent by Zhao’s Binance Holdings came after a bitter feud between with Bankman-Fried spilled into the open. Zhao actively undermined confidence in FTX’s finances, helping spark an exodus of users from the three-year-old FTX.com exchange. 

A day before reaching a deal, Bankman-Fried said on Twitter that assets on FTX were “fine.” 

Terms of the emergency buyout were scant, with Binance saying the agreement came after “a significant liquidity crunch” befell FTX and the firm asked for its help. 

The price of Sol, the native token of the Solana blockchain -- which is associated with both FTX and Bankman-Fried’s crypto trading house Alameda Research -- posted dramatic declines alongside other tokens of Solana-based projects. Sol was down as much as 36 per cent on Wednesday, taking losses this year to 90 per cent. 

“SBF and FTX were the biggest patrons of Solana,” Teng Yan, a researcher at digital-asset research firm Delphi Digital, said on Twitter. “This era is over. Binance has taken over, and they will heavily favor BNB chain over Solana. Alameda had ~US$1B in locked and unlocked US$SOL, which they’ll have to sell if insolvent. This puts a huge sell pressure on US$SOL.” 

The FTX-Binance ordeal gave some traders flashbacks to the issues suffered by Celsius -- the crypto lender that collapsed earlier this year -- as well as those seen by other firms that were engulfed in this year’s crash in digital assets.

Teong Hng, CEO at crypto investment firm Satori Research, said the “situation is still very fluid” while adding “I am confident these two crypto giants will do the right thing to protect investors and the industry.”

CANADIAN BITCOIN OWNERSHIP SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASED DURING THE PANDEMIC: BOC SURVEY

Hilary Punchard, BNN Bloomberg
Oct 12, 2022

Bitcoin ownership significantly increased among Canadians last year, according to a survey released by the Bank of Canada.

In the central bank’s 2021 Bitcoin Omnibus Survey, it found ownership levels increased to 13 per cent in 2021.

The number of Canadians who owned Bitcoin sat at five per cent between 2018 and 2020.




“This increase occurred following widespread increases in the savings and wealth of Canadians during the pandemic,” the BoC report states.

“At the same time, some fintech companies began to offer cryptocurrencies alongside traditional investment products, providing consumers with a wider range of accessible and user-friendly platforms to buy Bitcoin.”

Bitcoin ownership increased the most among men (19 per cent) compared with women (seven per cent.)

The survey also found younger Canadians are more likely to be Bitcoin owners, with 26 per cent of Canadians 18 to 34 investing in the digital asset in 2021.


SMALLER STAKES


The majority of Bitcoin owners have a smaller stake in the digital asset.

“In 2021, the median amount of Bitcoin held was $500 worth, and 70 per cent of Bitcoin owners held the equivalent of $5,000 or less,” the report said.

“The value of Bitcoin holdings is higher for long-term owners than recent owners because long-term owners benefited from the significant run-up in prices that occurred during 2020.”


ONE-OUT-OF-FOUR REPORTED SIGNIFICANT LOSS


Many Canadian Bitcoin owners have suffered a significant investment loss at some point.

The report found 25 per cent of Bitcoin owners had lost a large amount in a price crash, which is up from 18 per cent in 2019.

Over the past three years, Bitcoin hit a high of US$67,734.04 on November 9, 2021.

Since then, the cryptocurrency has fallen more than 28 per cent to trade at $19,096.57 as of mid-day Wednesday.

Canadians also said that they’ve reported other issues with their crypto assets such as losing access to their wallet (11 per cent), transaction problems (nine per cent) or stolen funds (seven per cent.)

OSC files allegations of fraud in multimillion-dollar crypto offering

The Canadian Press
Oct 3, 2022

The Ontario Securities Commission says it has filed allegations against Troy Richard James Hogg related to a crypto token offering that raised US$51 million.

The statement of allegations says that between May 2017 and June 2019, Hogg, an Ontario resident, promoted and sold a crypto asset named Dignity token, previously called Unity Ingot, to investors around the world.

The regulator alleges that Hogg and his companies — Cryptobontix Inc., Arbitrade Exchange Inc. and Arbitrade Ltd. — defrauded investors with false and misleading statements in promotional materials, including that gold bullion supported the value of the tokens.

The OSC alleges that Hogg and his companies further defrauded investors by spending a significant amount of invested funds on things unrelated to crypto security tokens, including buying real estate and making payments to companies controlled by Hogg.

The regulator also alleges that Hogg did not file a prospectus for the token or obtain the necessary registration with the OSC to engage in trading activities.

The OSC says it was assisted in its investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which ran a parallel investigation and has levelled charges against Hogg and several U.S. residents.

TC Energy seeking to sell off $5B in assets in 

2023 to fund future projects

The Canadian Press Nov. 9, 2022

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TC Energy Corp. is looking to divest $5 billion in assets next year, as the Calgary-based pipeline operator seeks to pay down debt and fund new projects.

In a conference call to discuss third quarter financial results Wednesday, chief executive François Poirier said TC Energy will seek to sell off non-core assets and minority interests to help finance its larger expansion goals without taking on large amounts of debt.

"We are opportunity rich," Poirier said. "And being opportunity opportunity-rich means we expect to sanction additional high-quality growth projects that will further differentiate TC Energy as an industry leader. So there is a need to balance our sources and uses of capital without the reliance on further external equity."

Poirier declined to provide specifics around which assets could be up for sale, though he said that the greenhouse gas emissions profile of individual assets will be a factor as the company seeks to reduce its carbon footprint. 

In addition, he said a divestiture program will give TC Energy the capacity to move faster with some of its efforts to reduce its emissions by 30 per cent by 2030, and reach the target of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. The company is exploring a carbon capture transportation and sequestration system in partnership with Pembina Pipeline Corp., and also has a partnership with Irving Oil to explore the development of low-carbon hydrogen opportunities.

On Wednesday, Poirier said he was encouraged by last week's federal fall economic statement, which pledged government support for the development of clean technologies as well as a new tax credit for hydrogen development.

"We've been working very hard to develop our capabilities in some of these new low-carbon areas," Poirier said. "Clearly, the incentives that have been presented both in the U.S. and Canada are going to accelerate our opportunity set in our low-carbon businesses."

TC Energy reported Wednesday that its third-quarter profit rose compared with a year ago as its revenue gained more than 15 per cent.

The company said it earned net income attributable to common shares of $841 million or 84 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from $779 million or 80 cents per share a year earlier.

Revenue for the quarter totalled nearly $3.80 billion, up from $3.24 billion in the third quarter of 2021.

During the quarter, TC Energy resolved a long-standing dispute with LNG Canada over projected cost overruns for the Coastal GasLink pipeline project, which TC is building to ship natural gas to the LNG Canada export terminal currently under construction near Kitimat, B.C.

The revised project agreements reflect a new total cost estimate for Coastal GasLink of $11.2 billion, up from $6.6 billion.

In August, TC Energy announced a strategic alliance with Mexico's state-owned electric utility for the development of new natural gas infrastructure in central and southeast Mexico.

As a result of that agreement, TC Energy announced it will go ahead with construction of the Southeast Gateway pipeline, a 715-km offshore natural gas pipeline to serve the southeast region of Mexico. That project is estimated to cost US$4.5 billion, and be complete by mid-2025.

GREENWASHING

TC Energy spending $146M to build solar power project in Alberta

The Canadian Press OCTOBER 2022

TC Energy Corp. says it is spending $146 million to build its first Canadian solar power project.

The company says the Saddlebrook solar project will be located near Aldersyde, Alta., south of Calgary.

It will have the capacity to generate 81 megawatts, enough energy to power 20,000 homes annually. 

TC Energy says it has obtained all regulatory approvals and permits and construction is expected to be finished next year. 

During the construction phase, the company says the project will involve about 140 workers. 

Two full-time TC Energy employees will work at the facility once it is in operation.

TC Energy, Indigenous partners fall out after

end of Keystone XL


Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News

AUGUST 2022

An Indigenous-backed energy company is seeking $50 million (US$38.2 million) from pipeline operator TC Energy Corp. after a falling out between partners on the now-abandoned Keystone XL project.

Natural Law Energy Inc., a group representing a number of Indigenous communities in Western Canada, is asking for “financial compensation for all the losses of income and the lost opportunities for future income” associated with an investment agreement signed in November 2020, according to a letter signed by Natural Law Chief Executive Officer Travis Meguinis and seen by Bloomberg News.

Natural Law agreed that year to invest as much as $1 billion in Keystone XL. US President Joe Biden pulled a key permit after taking office in January 2021, squelching plans to complete the 830,000-barrel-a-day pipeline.

Natural Law’s memorandum of understanding with TC Energy included possible equity stakes in other projects, according to Meguinis’s letter. But no deals came to fruition and TC Energy informed Natural Law that it intends to end the investment agreement, the company said in an email.

“Following the termination of the Keystone XL Pipeline project, TC Energy sought but was unsuccessful in identifying other commercial opportunities for investment with Natural Law Energy that met our shared goals and interests,” Calgary-based TC Energy said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg. “We have a long-standing relationship with the signatory Nations and remain committed to working directly with each Nation to understand their priorities and seek future opportunities to work together.”


'BAD FAITH'

Companies including TC Energy and Suncor Energy Inc. have turned to alliances and equity partnerships with Indigenous groups in try to overcome overcome opposition to building new projects. Energy infrastructure is seen by some people as a threat to Indigenous land and their traditional resources, though others back their involvement in pipelines as a way of alleviating poverty in those communities.

After Keystone XL’s cancellation, TC Energy and the Alberta government sought US$15 billion in compensation from the US government in a request for arbitration filed in November.

Natural Law was excluded from participating in the case and wasn’t told that such action would be brought, according to Meguinis’s letter. “This bad faith activity had damaged financial and economic opportunities for Natural Law” and its participating Indigenous groups, he wrote.

Meguinis declined to comment on his letter. “I don’t want to put any of our nations in jeopardy,” he said by phone. A phone call to Chief Alvin Francis, president and co-founder of Natural Law, through the offices of his Nekaneet First Nation wasn’t returned. An email to Chief Leonard Standing On The Road, director and co-founder of Natural Law, wasn’t returned.

After Keystone XL was canceled, Natural Law shifted focus to acquiring an equity stake in the Canadian government-owned Trans Mountain Pipeline. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has said it plans to sell the pipeline, which it bought from Kinder Morgan Inc. to save an expansion project running from Alberta to the Vancouver area.

Natural Law is seeking a 100 per cent stake in Trans Mountain and is competing with four other groups including Project Reconciliation, Nesika Services and Western Indigenous Pipeline Group, which has partnered with Pembina Pipeline Corp.

Consumer insolvencies rise 22.5 per cent compared with last year

The Canadian Press

Statistics Canada says consumer insolvencies rose 22.5 per cent in the third quarter compared with a year earlier, marking the largest percentage increase in 13 years.

The federal agency says consumer insolvency filings increased 2.3 per cent quarter over quarter.

However, consumer filings were down 25.5 per cent compared with the third quarter in 2019.

Bankruptcy filings by both businesses and consumers were down throughout the pandemic because of government subsidy programs.

PROOF OF THE NEED FOR A SOCIAL WAGE; UBI

IT WORKS FOR ALL

But filings have been rising steadily as subsidies ended, inflation persists and interest rates have been increasing rapidly.

Inflation in September was 6.9 per cent.

In Turkish-Russian relations, the Ukraine grain deal is not the point

November 7, 2022

Yörük Işık



The Ukraine grain export deal, which Turkey helped mediate over the summer, was saved last week to much fanfare, apparently after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan again intervened; but it is only a very small part of a much bigger problem. The central issue remains lifting Russia’s illegal blockade of Ukrainian ports, so Ukraine can freely trade with the world. That, not the grain deal per se, would do the most to resolve the global food crisis. The international community should not necessarily put energy into renewing the deal, because Russia has never truly engaged with it seriously and instead used those negotiations as a tactic to delay and distract from its wartime activities. Russia will almost certainly try to create a new crisis before the 120-day agreement expires on Nov. 22.

Russia’s veto over freedom of navigation in the Black Sea

While being on speaking terms with the Russians keeps the door to diplomacy open, it fails to address the critical underlying problem created by the grain export deal. The de facto situation is that Russia effectively has a say over who comes in and out of the Black Sea — an infringement of the fundamental law of the sea concept of freedom of navigation. The grain deal may be safe today, but it risks normalizing Russia’s blatant violation of international law in the Black Sea. Under the current arrangement, which Kyiv and Moscow each signed with the United Nations but notably not with one another, Russia is permitted to inspect international vessels of sovereign nations traveling to and from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. Even though Ankara had helped to mediate this outcome, it is an outrageous situation that should not be acceptable to Turkey.

What the Turkish government seemingly fails to understand is that Russia’s full-scale aggression toward Ukraine upended the entire post-World War II European political landscape. And the idea that mediation may help Russian President Vladimir Putin sign a peace deal in Ukraine “on terms that would not be too shameful for him” may be a total misreading of the new landscape that came into being after Feb. 24, 2022.

Putin’s about-face on the grain export deal

Turkish pro-government media outlets have hailed President Erdoğan’s role in encouraging Moscow’s return to the U.N.-brokered deal on Ukrainian grain exports, after Putin suspended its participation on Oct. 29. Russia announced that this decision was purportedly in retaliation for a “massive” Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea Fleet headquarters in Sevastopol, in occupied Crimea.

“I called Putin; they opened the grain corridor,” Erdoğan said in a live interview on Nov. 2, broadcast on the pro-government channels A Haber and ATV, referring to his phone conversation with the Kremlin leader the previous day. Turkey’s president, who has sought to play a mediating role between Moscow and Kyiv since the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, framed the revival of the grain deal as justification for his continued outreach to Putin.

Yet Ukrainian commentators saw Moscow’s about-face return to the grain export scheme as a sign of weakness amidst Ankara’s own growing role in the region. Serhiy Sydorenko, the editor-in-chief of the reputable foreign affairs website Yevropeyska Pravda, said on YouTube that Putin “fell flat on his face” by returning to the grain deal because he needs the Turkish president’s international support. “Erdoğan pressed an ultimatum to Putin: return to the grain deal.” Sydorenko continued, “…because the grain deal is everything for Erdoğan, he bet very much on it. For him, it is about international prestige, about relations with the Gulf and North African countries.” Whereas Putin, the Yevropeyska Pravda editor added, realized that the world was “not afraid” of his bravado and so was chastened into backing down. “ ‘Russia’s greatness’ was just enough for one smack on the head from Erdoğan,” an advisor to the Ukrainian presidential office, Oleksiy Arestovych, posted on Facebook.

The foundations of current Turkish-Russian ties

Ankara clearly condemns Moscow’s ongoing war of aggression, as it has since Russia’s original 2014 invasion of Ukraine — even as some other European allies were trying to formulate deals that would effectively hand Crimea to Russia. And it has notably sold and transferred weapons systems to Ukraine that have played a crucial role in defending against the Russian onslaught. Yet so far, Turkey has not joined the Western sanctions against Russia, and it has even sought to further deepen trade ties with Russia in recent weeks by discussing additional natural gas deals and construction of a second nuclear power plant.

The Turkish media and political landscape is also awash in uncritical parroting of Russian talking points and disinformation. This tendency begins right at the top. For example, Erdoğan contrasted his vision for bilateral relations with the Kremlin with the approach of leaders he met at the recent European Political Community summit in Prague, whom he rebuked for “badmouthing Putin.” “If you show such negative attitudes everywhere to the head of a state like Russia [...] it will retaliate. If you, as a leader, are attacked this way, would you approve of it?” Erdoğan asked rhetorically. He also said he and Putin had raised the issue of prioritizing grain transfers to “Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan,” where, he asserted, “people are dying from hunger.” In fact, this year’s commodities crises across Africa and the Middle East were sharply exacerbated, if not outright sparked, by Russia’s unprovoked aggression toward its sovereign southwestern neighbor; and this precarious economic and humanitarian situation in the Global South can only be truly solved when Russia stops its illegal blockade of Ukrainian ports. The crisis is deepened and complicated further by Russia stealing Ukrainian grain and selling it on the world market as if it were its own. Once again, Putin the arsonist is acting as the firefighter.

The fragility of a personalized relationship

Erdoğan and Putin have met face-to-face four times in the past four months, at each opportunity pledging closer trade and energy ties amid the economic turbulence aggravated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In particular, Erdoğan is counting on discounted energy offers from Putin ahead of key elections scheduled for June 2023, in the hopes that this can help resolve Turkey’s current financial crisis, which has featured the sharpest inflationary surge the country has experienced since World War II. Gönül Tol, the head of MEI’s Turkish Studies program, has also suggested that Putin could further interfere in Turkey’s internal politics by green-lighting a new Turkish military offensive in Syria just before next year’s elections.

However, as Kommersant business daily columnist Dmitry Drize warned last month, Russia’s bet on the Turkish president carries risks: Ankara could easily change course if Erdoğan loses the elections. This outcome would prove to be a serious blow for Moscow, as the relationship is more personalized than institutionalized, and it would harm Russia in both the economic and security spheres.

The value of Turkey’s imports from Russia more than doubled in the first nine months of 2022 compared to the same period last year, with trade ministry figures showing Russia topping the list of countries that Turkey imports from. Energy purchases accounted for most of the rise, especially since the re-invasion of Ukraine and Europe’s self-imposed embargoes on Russian hydrocarbons: Turkey has become one of the biggest buyers of Russian crude and coal.

The value of Turkish exports to Russia has also risen sharply, particularly now that Turkey has turned into one of the few remaining logistical links to the outside world for Russia. Indeed, reports reveal that likely dozens of Western companies are bypassing international sanctions by accessing the Russian market via Turkey.

There has additionally been an unusual uptick in capital flows of unknown origin to Turkey. The country logged a “record high” of $28.3 billion in “net errors and omissions” in the first eight months of this year, likely from Russian oligarchs looking for safe places to park their wealth or from Russia’s state enterprises, such as Rosatom transferring dollars to finance its construction of the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in southern Turkey. In either case, such inflows of liquidity are extremely welcome as Turkey seeks to finance its large current account deficit with questionable and unorthodox financial policies.

Finally, there are the military prestige considerations for the Kremlin. For Russia — which suffered major battlefield defeats in Ukraine since February and whose Black Sea naval forces are in worse condition than all four of its other fleets and flotillas — Ankara keeping the Turkish Straits closed represents an unintended lifeline of sorts. When the 2022 Russo-Ukrainian war began, Turkey quickly invoked its rights under the 1936 Montreux Convention and closed the Bosporus and Dardanelles to all naval traffic not home-ported in the Black Sea — Russian, Ukrainian, but also that of outside powers. By keeping out all extra-regional naval vessels, this continued closure of the Straits actually helps prevent Russia’s further humiliation in the Black Sea, were the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to expand its presence in the region substantially.

Time for NATO to show its flag

So far, arbitration efforts and phone calls from Erdoğan have done little to change Putin’s political-military calculations. If Russia won’t respond to diplomacy, then it is time for NATO to put a meaningful defensive naval presence into the Black Sea to protect merchant traffic going to and from Ukrainian ports — and not just because the Alliance stands on the side of Ukraine. By keeping Ukraine’s ports open, the Euro-Atlantic community would address the larger question: maintaining freedom of navigation in the Black Sea, which has implications for all other littoral states, including NATO members as well as strategic partner countries like Georgia. But it would also go a long way toward easing the systemic pressures on global commodities markets that have so greatly harmed countries in the Middle East and across the Global South over the past year.

Yörük Işık is a geopolitical analyst based in Istanbul, where he runs the Bosphorus Observer, a consultancy analyzing maritime activity on the Turkish Straits. He is also a non-resident scholar with MEI’s Turkey Program.

The image is courtesy of the author.


The Middle East Institute (MEI) is an independent, non-partisan, non-for-profit, educational organization. It does not engage in advocacy and its scholars’ opinions are their own. MEI welcomes financial donations, but retains sole editorial control over its work and its publications reflect only the authors’ views. For a listing of MEI donors, please click here.