With global agricultural trade dwindling and crop reserves dramatically lower, some nations buckled. In the Philippines, an inability to procure rice on the world market led to riots in Manila that were brutally put down by President Rodrigo Duterte.

Food-fueled unrest spread in Indonesia and Myanmar, and hungry people began to flee.  In East Africa, aid organizations warned of humanitarian catastrophe amid local crop failures.

In Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, government attempts to curb subsidies raised the price of bread, helping trigger deadly riots. Those same concerns about soaring costs, along with grievances about freedom and justice, had blown up into all-out rebellion in 2011.

 

As millions of hungry refugees began to migrate toward European Union countries, Turkey suspended its deal with the EU to hold them back in exchange for billions of euros. At an emergency summit, European leaders tightened controls around their external borders.

The U.K. crashed out of the EU with no deal in March—and became the envy of the continent. Populists from France to the Czech Republic joined forces to end the bloc’s passport-free zone and Italy talked more seriously about exiting the union itself. Nationalists, all favoring stronger border policing, won a strong minority in European parliamentary elections in May.

In Asia, Australia fended off another wave of boat people, deporting them home as its offshore detention centers filled up. Japan drew upon its large rice surpluses; its airlifts kept thousands of refugees from starving to death without allowing any into the country. Fearful of encouraging hoarding, the country’s leaders kept some supplies on hand.

China, which had been relying on Brazilian soybean supplies since mid-2018, was embroiled in an escalating trade war with the U.S. It didn’t help when President Xi Jinping ratcheted up his rhetoric on Taiwan, which China regards as a province. Pirates begin to terrorize the South China Sea, a key trade route, creating an opportunity for a power grab for Xi in the territorially contested areas.

In Singapore, tensions rose with poorer neighbors Malaysia and Indonesia. While the rich island state could afford the uptick in food prices, it faced the risk of having its shipments of water supplies from Malaysia curtailed.

El Niño-related rains led to record grain harvests in the northern U.S. and the burgeoning Canadian Corn Belt. “America’s farmers are the greatest in the world,” Trump cried at a raucous rally in Des Moines, Iowa, one year ahead of his bid for re-election.

 U.S. producers, already sitting on massive soybean inventories, heading toward a record corn surplus and facing a bumper wheat harvest, were ready to resume their long-expected role as sellers of last resort. But many devastated nations couldn’t pay the high world prices.

Inflation was eating at the U.S. economy as high world food prices flowed through to grocery shelves. Many U.S. consumers, especially Trump supporters, considered their harvest a national treasure meant for American stomachs, a point hammered home nightly on Fox News.

While U.S. farmers eyed an export bonanza and its potential for record revenue, Trump’s appeals to patriotism and calls for an “America First” food policy kept them from demanding too much from Washington. Predictions that shuttered exports would cost Trump the farm vote had been proven wrong in the past.

 Trump had the power to open markets and feed the world. Or, he could send other nations—ones that had often mocked him and refused to take his blustering seriously—the ultimate put-down. His tweet: “With our NATIONAL SECURITY at stake, I will sign an executive order TODAY putting AMERICA FIRST in food. Our harvest Treasure will remain home. #MAGA2020.”