Where the Money Is Moving.
Where the Money Is Moving.
American Commodities Have the Floor
March 22, 2026
Export Trails
Where the Money Is Moving.
Issue
#2
| March 22, 2026
The Middle East conflict is entering its fourth week, and the effects on global supply chains are accelerating faster than most coverage is keeping up with. This newsletter doesn't cover the war — it covers what the war is doing to commodity markets, freight corridors, and the opportunities forming on the other side of the disruption.
The Gulf accounts for 44% of the world's sulfur, 20% of its aluminum, 11% of its semi-finished steel, and a fifth of its crude oil. When that supply stops moving, buyers around the world start looking for alternatives. A lot of those alternatives are American.
Here's where the opportunities are landing right now.
—Robyn
FERTILIZER: AMERICAN PRODUCERS HAVE A WINDOW
Twenty-one ships carrying nearly a million metric tons of fertilizer are stranded in the Persian Gulf right now. Industries Qatar and SABIC in Saudi Arabia declared force majeure on shipments to South America and Asia. Their buyers need product and their usual suppliers can't deliver.
US phosphate producers in Florida and Idaho are positioned to step into that gap. American phosphate capacity exists. What's been missing is the price incentive to compete against cheaper Gulf product. That incentive just arrived — urea at NOLA jumped 32% in one week to $683 per metric ton, and Gulf suppliers are telling their customers they can't ship.
For domestic sourcing: most fertilizer imports are exempt from Section 122 tariffs. Urea, ammonium nitrate, DAP, MAP, potash — all duty-free. Sulfur and ammonia are the exceptions at 10%, but Canada supplies 72% of US sulfur imports under USMCA, so the tariff exposure is minimal. The Defense Production Act order on glyphosate and phosphorus is reshoring domestic production of the inputs American agriculture depends on — that's supply coming online, not just policy.
For ag operators heading into planting season: the North American input chain — Canadian sulfur and potash, domestic nitrogen and phosphate — is more insulated than most producers realize. The global shortage is real. The American supply position is stronger than the headlines suggest.
CATTLE AND FEED: WHAT CHANGED THIS WEEK
Two developments since last issue. The JBS Greeley strike is entering week two — 6% of US slaughter capacity offline, the first slaughterhouse walkout in 40 years. Feedlots are holding cattle longer and paying to feed animals that can't move to market. That's putting a spotlight on the processing concentration problem that independent ranchers have been raising for years, and the conversation about regional processing investment is getting louder.
Meanwhile, diesel at $5.07 is hitting every truck hauling feed to those feedlots. Fertilizer costs are spiking into planting season, which means corn production costs are rising, which means feed costs follow. The compounding pressure on cattle operations right now is fuel, feed inputs, slaughter capacity, and a herd that's still at a 75-year low — all moving in the wrong direction at the same time.
The rebuild signal from the January heifer retention report is still the bright spot. But the operators who survive to benefit from it are the ones managing logistics costs tightly right now. Rural Exports' Agricultural Disaster Relief program coordinates freight for producers navigating exactly this kind of compounding disruption — fires, input spikes, supply chain backup. One point of contact.
POULTRY AND EGGS: FEED IS THE VARIABLE, CUBA IS THE UPSIDE
Flock recovery from bird flu is driving egg supply up and prices down. The production engine is working. Chicken output is strong. The constraint isn't the birds — it's what feeds them.
Corn and soybean meal prices track fertilizer input costs with a lag. If planting season gets squeezed by the sulfur shortage and fertilizer costs stay elevated, feed costs follow in six to nine months. The current egg price recovery is real but it's built on an input chain that's under pressure. Producers watching margins should be watching fertilizer markets as closely as they watch poultry futures.
The opportunity sitting right next to this: Cuba imported $307 million in American poultry last year. That number was up significantly year over year, and it's legal under the Trade Sanctions Reform Act — cash-in-advance, BIS licensed, no credit risk. Pork exports to Cuba doubled. Dairy and soybean meal both grew. The full ag corridor hit $476 million in FY2025.
Cuba confirmed talks with Washington two weeks ago. If even a partial deal advances, the corridor gets wider. The Dominican Republic — similar population — imports $1.1 billion in US ag annually. Cuba is at less than half that. The gap is obvious and the product is already moving.
For poultry, dairy, grain, and pork producers looking to grow export revenue: Cuba is an active lane with room to run. Rural Exports' Made to Scale program is built for companies at exactly this stage — ready to enter or expand in a market but needing the framework, compliance pathway, and logistics coordination to do it right.
STEEL AND MANUFACTURING: DOMESTIC MILLS ARE WINNING, AND AFRICA NEEDS WHAT AMERICA BUILDS
Iran's 11% of global semi-finished steel is offline. The South Pars gas field — the world's largest — was struck this week, cutting the natural gas needed to produce Direct Reduced Iron for low-carbon steelmaking. Electric arc furnace operators worldwide are caught between rising energy and tightening feedstock.
American mills are on the right side of this. Section 232 tariffs at 50% have protected domestic capacity for years. Now global demand is redirecting toward stable jurisdictions on top of that protection. Domestic producers are getting orders and pricing power they haven't had in a decade.
The raw material to feed those mills is increasingly coming from West Africa. Guinea's Simandou — the world's largest untapped iron ore deposit — is ramping toward 120 million tonnes per year. Liberia is tripling output this year. The DRC signed the Washington Accords with the US in December. South Africa designated iron ore a pillar of its critical minerals strategy. Iron ore is not subject to Section 232, and AGOA provides duty-free access from eligible sub-Saharan countries through December 2026 — which means West African ore entering US mills faces a lower tariff barrier than finished steel from almost anywhere else.
That same mining corridor needs equipment to operate. Tractors, excavators, drilling rigs, processing infrastructure. Africa's farm equipment market is growing at 5.6% annually through 2035. American manufacturers — Caterpillar, John Deere, AGCO, CNH, Komatsu America — are competing for that market against Chinese and Indian manufacturers pricing aggressively. The difference right now: US trade policy is actively building commercial presence in Africa to counter Chinese influence, and American-made equipment has both market pull and a policy tailwind. Exports are outbound — zero tariff headwind.
ENERGY: THE WORLD IS BUYING AMERICAN
Japan signed a $56 billion energy deal with the United States last week — oil, natural gas, LNG. They import 90% of their crude through the Strait of Hormuz. They just made one of the largest energy bets in modern history on American supply as their long-term source.
The US is producing a record 13.6 million barrels per day. Over 6,000 drilling permits have been cleared — highest volume in 15 fiscal years. Venezuelan heavy crude is feeding Gulf Coast refineries under US-controlled sale agreements. A new oil refinery — the first built in America in 50 years — was announced for Brownsville, Texas, backed by India's Reliance Industries.
Gulf energy infrastructure was damaged across four countries this week — Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait all took hits from Iranian retaliation. The rebuild pipeline for turbines, pipeline components, refinery equipment, and industrial controls is measured in years, not months. American energy services and equipment companies are positioned to fill that demand.
The Brownsville corridor alone now has the new refinery, Saronic Technologies building Navy drone boats, and SpaceX's Starbase — energy, defense, and aerospace converging in one South Texas port. That's not coincidence. That's infrastructure investment clustering around a geography that's being built to last.
LOGISTICS: REROUTES THAT CREATE ADVANTAGE
The Jones Act was waived for 60 days — first time since 1920. Foreign-flagged vessels can now move oil, fertilizer, and coal between US ports. That opens a larger vessel pool for coastal shipping and creates short-term capacity that didn't exist a month ago.
Cape of Good Hope rerouting is adding 14 days to any Asia-origin freight that used to transit the Strait or the Red Sea. Both corridors are now blocked simultaneously for the first time in modern history. Carriers building Cape route capacity and relationships now will have the infrastructure when competitors rush back after the strait reopens. That's a positioning advantage, not just a workaround.
Rail intermodal is gaining ground on trucking with diesel above $5. On lanes over 1,000 miles where timing allows a 5-7 day transit, the fuel math per ton-mile increasingly favors rail. Manufacturers with modal flexibility — the ability to shift between truck and rail based on cost — are absorbing the fuel spike better than those locked into single-mode contracts.
BOTTOM LINE
The disruption is real. So are the contracts on the other side of it.
American phosphate producers are filling Gulf fertilizer gaps. Domestic steel mills are running behind 50% tariff protection with growing demand. West African mining needs American equipment. Cuba is a half-billion-dollar ag corridor expanding under active negotiations. Japan just bet $56 billion on American energy. And the logistics infrastructure — from Jones Act capacity to Cape route positioning to rail intermodal — is being rebuilt in ways that favor operators who move now.
The freight moves. The opportunities are there. Plan accordingly.
—Robyn Martin | Rural Exports
media@rural-logistics.com
| (945) 403-1407
ruralexports.net
SOURCES:
EIA STEO (March 10) · Rigzone · AAA Fuel Prices · CSIS · IntelliNews · FinancialContent · CNBC · American Farm Bureau Federation · Wood Mackenzie · SolarQuarter · World Economic Forum · African Mining Week · Global Market Insights · Bloomberg · Sandstone Group · KXAN · Grist · USDA ERS · Farm Policy News ·
Congress.gov
AGOA/Section 232 Reports ·
Exchange-rates.org
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