E76.5: Food shortage, China's grand plan, inflation, French election plus an All-In Summit preview

Evidence from 2022–2023 shows that fertilizer- and acreage‑related stress on global food production did in fact persist at unusually high levels for roughly the 9–18 months after April 2022, broadly matching Friedberg’s timing.

• Fertilizer prices and use: Fertilizer prices spiked further after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, then by March 2023 had only fallen back to pre‑invasion levels while still remaining above 2021, with significant uncertainty; high costs led farmers to cut fertilizer use and shift acreage away from more fertilizer‑intensive crops such as corn and wheat in 2022. (ers.usda.gov) Global data from the International Fertilizer Association show fertilizer use falling about 3% in 2021 and 5% in 2022, with especially sharp cuts (≥10%) in regions like West and Central Europe, West Asia, and Africa—consistent with the “reduced acreage and fertilizer use” mechanism he described. (world-grain.com)

• Food prices and inflation: The FAO Food Price Index peaked in March 2022, then declined but was still around 121 points in August 2023—more than 20 points above 2020 levels—indicating that global food commodity prices remained elevated through mid‑to‑late 2023 despite coming down from the peak. (fao-test.atmire.com) FAO also reports that food consumer price inflation rose to about 13.5% globally by December 2022 and was still around 9.3% in July 2023, far above pre‑pandemic norms, showing that the stress on consumers persisted into his forecast window. (fao-test.atmire.com)

• Food‑security outcomes: The 2023 State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World and related analyses report that about 2.4 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure in 2022—391 million more than in 2019—with hunger and food insecurity remaining far above pre‑COVID levels. (web.wtocenter.org.tw) The Global Report on Food Crises 2023 finds 258 million people in 58 countries in acute food insecurity in 2022, the highest number in the report’s history, with very high levels still projected for 2023. (web.wtocenter.org.tw) These impacts are explicitly linked to the combination of war‑driven fertilizer disruptions, reduced fertilizer use, and other shocks.

• Duration relative to his 9–18‑month window: Country‑level modeling (e.g., for Rwanda) expected high global fertilizer prices and associated reductions in fertilizer use and agricultural growth to last through at least 2024, with particularly strong effects in 2022–2023. (knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu) At the same time, by late 2024 the World Bank reported that fertilizer prices had finally fallen about 17% year‑over‑year and were projected to keep easing, suggesting that the most acute phase of fertilizer‑driven stress was concentrated in the roughly 2022–2023 period Friedberg pointed to, rather than becoming a permanently escalating crisis. (blogs.worldbank.org)

Taken together, the data show a prolonged, fertilizer‑ and acreage‑related squeeze on global food production and supply that remained severe well into 2023, broadly in line with Friedberg’s forecast of a 9–18‑month "slow train" crisis after April 2022. While some indicators (like the FAO price index) began easing before the very end of that window, overall conditions remained materially worse than pre‑crisis for about the duration he predicted, so the prediction is best classified as right rather than wrong or merely ambiguous.

Available evidence for April 2022–April 2023 shows the opposite of what was predicted:

• China hoarded grain instead of using its stockpile to export calories. By mid‑2022 China held roughly half of global wheat, 60% of rice, and about 70% of maize stockpiles, keeping reserves at “historically high” levels and contributing to higher world food prices, rather than releasing them to world markets.
• China was a large net food importer, not a major exporter “bridging the calorie gap.” In 2022 China imported about $218 billion of food and agricultural products and exported only about $70 billion, making it the world’s largest net food importer. Analyses emphasize that China has been a net importer of agricultural products since 2004 and increasingly relies on foreign supplies of soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and dairy. This is inconsistent with the idea that it became a primary emergency calorie supplier to food‑insecure countries.
• The main mechanisms that alleviated the 2022–23 food crisis were not Chinese grain exports. The Black Sea Grain Initiative reopened Ukrainian ports and enabled tens of millions of tonnes of grain exports, and Ukraine’s separate Grain From Ukraine program plus substantial U.S. and World Bank funding were central to supplying vulnerable countries and stabilizing prices. These efforts are widely credited in contemporaneous reporting and analysis; China’s food exports are not.
• China’s food assistance and agricultural cooperation did continue, but at modest scale and as a continuation of earlier policy. Chinese official and media sources highlight long‑running South–South food aid and agricultural projects (e.g., donations of a few thousand tonnes of rice or wheat to countries such as Zimbabwe, and financial contributions via FAO/WFP), and stress that this role dates back many years, not as a new, dramatic 2022–23 shift. The quantities involved are tiny relative to global calorie shortfalls.
• Analyses of “grain diplomacy” and food‑security geopolitics over this period focus on Russia and Ukraine, not China, as the actors using grain exports for leverage in Africa and other food‑insecure regions. There is no broad recognition in the literature or news coverage of an “incredible” increase in Chinese geopolitical leverage specifically tied to exporting stored grain.
• Chinese policy in this period emphasized self‑sufficiency and import diversification, not leveraging exports. Strategic documents and commentary stress boosting domestic grain output, increasing stockpiles, and reducing dependence on foreign suppliers—again pointing to a defensive, inward‑focused food‑security posture, not the outward‑focused export diplomacy the prediction envisioned.

Given these points, China did not become “one of the very few potential solutions for bridging the calorie gap” by deploying its stockpiled calories abroad, nor did it obviously accumulate an exceptional new level of geopolitical power in food‑insecure countries via such deals during April 2022–April 2023. The core mechanism and magnitude of change described in the prediction did not materialize.

The Horn of Africa did face a severe food crisis from 2020–2023, with drought leaving tens of millions in need and causing an estimated 43,000 excess deaths in Somalia in 2022 alone. (en.wikipedia.org) However, available data on funding and food assistance show that the main emergency response in Ethiopia and Somalia was led by the US and other G7 donors working largely through WFP and UN appeals, not by China. For example, the US government reported more than $1.3 billion in assistance to Somalia since the start of FY 2022, with a surge in humanitarian aid “mobilized in large part by the United States” credited by famine review bodies with delaying famine in parts of Somalia at the end of 2022; G7 partners (Germany, UK, Italy, Japan, etc.) also provided substantial emergency food funding for East Africa and the Horn. (worldjpn.net) At the global level, a Reuters analysis of UN data found that from 2020–2024 three donors—the US, Germany, and the European Commission—supplied 58% of all humanitarian funding, while China, India and Russia together provided less than 1%, indicating China was not a primary humanitarian food donor anywhere, including the Horn. (reuters.com) During the 2022–2023 food crisis, China did provide some bilateral emergency food assistance (e.g., an Ethiopia–China agreement worth about 161 million birr, roughly US$3 million, for emergency food aid in early 2023), but this was small compared with the scale of US and European funding, and there is no evidence China became the main supplier of cereals or food aid to Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, or Djibouti. (plenglish.com) In fact, analyses of the 2022–2023 global food crisis note that China was accumulating exceptionally large grain stockpiles (over half of world wheat and major shares of rice and maize) rather than exporting them at scale, which contributed to higher world prices rather than resolving shortages abroad. (en.wikipedia.org)

On the military/strategic side, China’s first and only confirmed overseas base in the Horn of Africa is the PLA Support Base in Djibouti, which was negotiated around 2015–2016 and has been operational since 2017—well before the 2022 podcast. (en.wikipedia.org) Open-source surveys of foreign military facilities in Djibouti and regional security analyses through 2023–2025 continue to list that single Chinese base and do not report any new Chinese military bases or similarly permanent facilities in Eritrea, Somalia, or Ethiopia. (en.wikipedia.org) While China’s economic and diplomatic footprint in the Horn has grown, there is no documented case where Chinese food assistance during the 2022–2023 crisis directly translated into a new or expanded permanent military or strategic foothold in the region.

Because (1) China did not become the primary food supplier resolving the Horn of Africa’s acute shortages in the year following April 2022, and (2) it did not secure at least one new or clearly expanded permanent military/strategic base there as a result of such food aid, the prediction did not materialize.

Available evidence shows that between roughly October 2022 and January 2023, global media and policy analysis did not broadly converge on the idea that China had gained major new geopolitical leverage by using its surplus food reserves during the food crisis.

1. What media and policy writing actually emphasized in 2022–early 2023

   • Coverage of the 2022–2023 global food crises highlighted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, climate shocks, export bans by countries like India, and general supply-chain disruptions as the main drivers of the crisis. China was mentioned primarily for its large grain stockpiles and hoarding behavior, not as a newly dominant geopolitical food power.
     • Analyses note that by mid‑2022 China held about 51% of global wheat, 60% of rice, and 69% of maize stockpiles, and that these “historically high” reserves contributed to higher world prices. But the framing is about price effects and self‑protection, not about Beijing’s increased leverage over others. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • A U.S.–China food‑security debate in mid‑2022 (e.g., Voice of America) portrayed mutual accusations—Washington accusing Beijing of hoarding and China blaming the U.S. for sanctions and global instability. Again, the narrative is contention over responsibility for shortages and prices, not recognition that China had successfully converted reserves into broad geopolitical leverage. (voanews.com)

2. How experts actually talked about China’s food position

   • A detailed February 7, 2023 analysis in The Diplomat on China’s food security—right after the 6–9 month window—describes 2022 as a “tough year” for Chinese agriculture due to droughts, floods, zero‑COVID disruptions, and war‑related supply shocks. It acknowledges China’s “massive grain reserve systems” and huge share of global grain stocks, but frames them as tools to safeguard China’s own food supply amid vulnerability, not as a basis for new geopolitical leverage over other states. (thediplomat.com)
   • A strategic study in the U.S. Air University’s Journal of Indo‑Pacific Affairs ("Dragons Must Eat") treats Chinese food insecurity and reliance on imports as a strategic vulnerability that Western agricultural exporters might, in theory, leverage against China. The thrust is that others might gain leverage over Beijing via food exports—not that Beijing is gaining leverage over the world via surplus reserves. (airuniversity.af.edu)
   • Broader think‑tank work (e.g., CSIS’s ChinaPower project) consistently characterizes China as the world’s largest food importer with declining self‑sufficiency and substantial dependence on foreign soybeans and other inputs—again emphasizing vulnerability and dependence, not surplus‑based coercive power. (chinapower.csis.org)

3. Later discussions of “food as a strategic weapon” don’t backdate to 2022–early 2023

   • More explicit arguments that China is turning food trade or food aid into a strategic weapon—for example via Belt and Road food diplomacy or using food aid to pressure countries on Taiwan—appear in specialized commentary from 2023–2025. These pieces describe a potential or emerging strategy, not a widely acknowledged shift that had already occurred by late 2022. (skytopstrategies.com)
   • Even those later analyses still emphasize stockpiling for national resilience and import diversification, not a widely accepted view that China achieved a step‑change in global leverage in 2022 purely by drawing on its grain reserves.

4. Mismatch with the prediction’s specific claim
   The prediction required that within 6–9 months of April 2022, it would become a macro‑trend everyone wakes up to that:

   • (a) China had “so much leverage around the world”, and
   • (b) that leverage specifically came from using its surplus food reserves during the global food crisis.

   The actual record shows:

   • China’s large reserves and “hoarding” were noticed and debated, but this did not become a dominant global media theme about China gaining decisive new leverage. (en.wikipedia.org)
   • Policy and academic circles in 2022–early 2023 more often framed food as a strategic vulnerability for China and a potential lever for Western exporters, not as a new source of Chinese coercive power. (thediplomat.com)

Given those points, the forecast that by roughly October 2022–January 2023 it would be broadly recognized that China had significantly increased its geopolitical leverage by deploying its surplus food reserves did not materialize. The core mechanism (surplus‑food‑driven global leverage) and the timing (6–9 months) are both unsupported by the record.

Therefore, the prediction is wrong.

BEA data show that after contracting in the first half of 2022 (real GDP −1.6% in Q1 and −0.6% in Q2),(apps.bea.gov) a period widely described as a ‘technical recession’ because of the two consecutive negative quarters,(rabobank.com) real GDP then returned to growth. It grew at annualized rates of about 2.9% in Q3 2022,(bea.gov) 2.6% in Q4 2022,(apps.bea.gov) and 2.0% in Q1 2023.(bea.gov) Thus, the US did not experience one or two quarters of real GDP contraction starting in late 2022 or early 2023 as Chamath specified; the only back‑to‑back contractions occurred earlier in 2022, outside his stated late‑2022/early‑2023 window. Because the prediction’s timing is integral to its content and that timing did not materialize, this forecast is judged wrong.

Chamath made this comment on April 16, 2022, when the federal funds target range had only just begun to rise from the zero lower bound (it was 0.25–0.50% after the March 16, 2022 hike).(ycharts.com)

He suggested that as the then-current hiking cycle progressed, "you could see rates at three, 3.5%." By September 21, 2022, the FOMC had raised the target range to 3.00–3.25% (lower limit 3.0%, upper limit 3.25%), squarely within his predicted 3.0–3.5% band and within his implied timeframe of end‑2022/early‑2023.(ycharts.com) The Fed then continued hiking beyond that level (reaching 4.25–4.50% by December 14, 2022, and peaking around 5.25–5.50% in 2023), but that does not contradict his claim that rates would reach roughly 3–3.5% during the cycle.(ycharts.com)

Since the federal funds rate indeed moved into the 3–3.5% range by late 2022 as he anticipated, the prediction is best classified as right.

Sacks’ prediction has three main testable parts: (1) headline CPI inflation would fall in the second half of 2022 from its earlier peak, largely due to year‑over‑year base effects; (2) cumulative CPI inflation over roughly Biden’s first two years would be in the low‑teens (~12–13%); and (3) voters would still feel worse off and be broadly negative about Biden heading into the November 2022 midterms.

1. Inflation peaking then falling in 2H 2022
   U.S. CPI year‑over‑year inflation peaked around 9.1% in June 2022 and then declined through the second half of the year, reaching 6.5% by December 2022. (theworlddata.com) That matches his claim that “the headline number will come down later this year.” His emphasis on base effects as the main reason is an oversimplification (energy prices, supply normalization, and Fed tightening also mattered), but the observable part of the prediction—headline CPI falling in 2H 2022 from its earlier peak—is correct.

2. Two‑year cumulative CPI inflation under Biden
   Using the BLS/FRED CPI-U index (seasonally adjusted, 1982–84=100), the index was about 262.639 in January 2021 and 300.456 in January 2023. (fred.stlouisfed.org) That implies cumulative inflation of roughly 14.4% over that period, not 12–13%. Even using October or November 2022 (around the midterms) still gives about 13.5–13.7% cumulative inflation from January 2021. (fred.stlouisfed.org) So he underestimated the magnitude somewhat, but he was directionally right that the two‑year inflation total would be in the low‑ to mid‑teens and far higher than normal.

3. Voters feeling worse off and negative toward Biden by the 2022 midterms
   Multiple late‑2022 polls show exactly the kind of sentiment he described:

• A Bankrate midterm‑election survey published Oct. 31, 2022 found 43% of Americans said their personal finances were worse than when Biden was elected, versus only 18% who said better, and about seven in ten of those worse‑off blamed Biden at least moderately. (bankrate.com)
• A Washington Post–ABC News poll conducted Oct. 30–Nov. 2, 2022 put Biden’s job approval at 41% approve, 53% disapprove, with more than four in ten saying their family’s finances were worse than two years earlier and fewer than two in ten saying better; Republicans held double‑digit advantages on the economy and on inflation/rising prices. (washingtonpost.com)
• A Gallup poll Oct. 3–20, 2022 similarly found Biden at 40% approval and 56% disapproval. (news.gallup.com)
• Analyses of the 2022 elections note that inflation and the economy remained top voter issues throughout 2022, with an October 2022 Monmouth poll reporting that 82% of Americans saw inflation as an “extremely or very important” issue and about seven in ten disapproved of Biden’s handling of the cost of living. (en.wikipedia.org) AP VoteCast summaries of the midterms likewise report that about eight in ten voters said the economy was in bad shape and a slim majority blamed Biden’s policies for high inflation. (miningjournal.net)

Taken together, these data show that by late 2022 inflation had indeed come off its peak but remained high, cumulative price increases over Biden’s first two years were in the low‑to‑mid‑teens (somewhat higher than Sacks’ 12–13% estimate), and voters widely felt worse off and held strongly negative views of Biden’s economic management heading into the midterms. Because the main structure and implications of his prediction played out as he described—despite his numeric under‑estimate of the exact two‑year inflation total—the forecast is best classified as right overall, with minor quantitative error.

BEA data show that U.S. real GDP fell in Q1 2022 (-1.6% annualized) and again in Q2 2022 (-0.6%), giving two consecutive quarters of negative real GDP in the first half of 2022.(apps.bea.gov) However, GDP then grew in Q3 2022 (3.2%) and Q4 2022 (2.6%), so there were no consecutive negative quarters “towards the end of the year.”(apps.bea.gov)

On an annual basis, real GDP growth slowed from 5.9% in 2021 to 2.1% in 2022, confirming an economic slowdown.(apps.bea.gov) But the specific, testable part of the prediction was a high probability of a technical recession (two negative quarters) toward the end of 2022, which did not occur; the technical recession-style pattern happened in early 2022 instead.

Additionally, the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee has not identified any U.S. recession after the brief COVID recession ending in April 2020, meaning there was no officially dated recession in 2022 at all.(nber.org)

Because the timing and condition he emphasized — a technical recession toward the end of 2022 — did not materialize, the prediction is best classified as wrong, despite being directionally right about a slowdown.

• Structure of the prediction. Sacks made a conditional forecast: if (a) the Russia–Ukraine war was still ongoing and (b) the U.S. went into a recession, then Biden’s job approval would fall into “Jimmy Carter territory,” i.e., roughly the high‑20% range. Gallup’s historical data show Carter’s worst approval at 28% in June 1979, which is the reference point for “Carter territory.” (news.gallup.com)

• Condition (a): war ongoing – satisfied. The large‑scale Russian invasion that began on Feb. 24, 2022 has continued without a formal end; major fronts in eastern and southern Ukraine are still described as part of an ongoing Russo‑Ukrainian war. (en.wikipedia.org)

• Condition (b): U.S. recession by late 2022 – not satisfied under the standard definition. While real U.S. GDP contracted in Q1 and Q2 of 2022, the economy returned to growth in the second half of the year and unemployment remained low. Analyses summarizing the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Business Cycle Dating Committee’s view note that no 2022 recession was declared, despite the two negative‑GDP quarters. (americanhartfordgold.com) Because the accepted arbiter of U.S. recessions did not date a recession in 2022, the prediction’s key economic condition did not actually occur.

• What happened to Biden’s approval anyway? Even at his lowest, Biden’s overall job approval never fell into the low‑ or mid‑20s. Gallup reports his personal low at 38% approval, below 40% but still well above Carter’s 28%. (news.gallup.com) Other pollsters’ lows (e.g., CIVIQS) put him around 30–32%, again above “Carter territory.” (breitbart.com)

• Why the forecast is scored as inconclusive. The prediction explicitly tied a Carter‑level collapse in approval to a specific scenario: Russia–Ukraine war plus a U.S. recession. The war condition was met, but the recession condition—using the standard NBER definition—was not. Because the hypothesized scenario never fully materialized, we cannot empirically test whether Biden’s approval would have dropped into the 20s under those exact conditions. Even though, in reality, his approval bottomed out in the high‑30s to low‑30s, that doesn’t strictly confirm or falsify the conditional claim. Hence the appropriate judgment is “inconclusive” rather than clearly right or wrong.

Evidence suggests Chamath’s call was broadly correct in direction and relative severity.

1. Did Europe enter a recession first?
Revised Eurostat data show the euro area had two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth: output fell 0.1% in Q4 2022 and 0.1% in Q1 2023, which meets the usual definition of a technical recession.(euronews.com) Reporting at the time noted that this reflected the hit from the energy shock and cost‑of‑living crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.(euronews.com) This timing (late 2022–early 2023) fits his “canary in the coal mine” framing.

2. How did the U.S. fare over the same period?
The U.S. saw two negative GDP quarters in early 2022, but employment remained very strong and major economists and officials argued the U.S. was not in a recession.(the-independent.com) On an annual basis, U.S. real GDP grew 2.5% in 2022 and 2.9% in 2023, with unemployment around mid‑3%—hardly a deep downturn.(en.wikipedia.org) In the specific period when the euro area slipped into recession (Q4 2022–Q1 2023), the U.S. economy continued to expand, and coverage contrasted the eurozone’s contraction with continued positive growth in the U.S.(theguardian.com) That is consistent with his claim that Europe would suffer more.

3. Was Europe’s downturn “much more” severe than the U.S.?
While the euro‑area recession was mild in terms of headline GDP (small negative quarters), Europe’s overall performance was clearly weaker than that of the U.S.:

• The IMF projected euro‑area growth to “bottom out” at 0.7% in 2023, versus much stronger U.S. growth.(imf.org)
• Germany, the largest European economy, contracted by about 0.3% in 2023 and was described as the worst‑performing major economy that year.(en.wikipedia.org)
• Later IMF and press analyses repeatedly highlight a widening growth gap, with the U.S. outpacing a stagnating euro area and broader Europe.(imf.org)

So, Europe indeed entered a recession in late 2022–early 2023, tied to the energy shock and inflation, while the U.S. experienced only a slowdown and continued to grow. Europe’s performance was clearly weaker, even if the recession was relatively shallow by historical standards. That makes Chamath’s prediction directionally and comparatively right.