U.S. talks to end the war with Iran advanced over the weekend even as uncertainty hung over the status of trade flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian military late Saturday said the strait had been officially closed due to “ongoing attacks against Lebanon” by Israel.

Nevertheless, Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Sunday that “great progress” had been made so far in talks in Switzerland with Iranian officials. Delegations from Pakistan and Qatar are mediating the negotiations at a Swiss resort near Lake Lucerne.

The expected full reopening of the strait has led to falling prices for key commodities like petroleum oil and fertilizer. U.S. Central Command said commercial ship traffic had increased on Saturday through the critical Mideast trade route, with 55 merchant vessels moving heavy cargo loads, including more than 17 million barrels of oil to global markets.

Keep in mind, however: Iran is insisting that all hostilities cease, including any attacks by Israel on Lebanon. “Iran will stop any negotiation if the Israeli regime does not withdraw from Lebanon,” the Revolutionary Guards-backed Tasnim news agency said Sunday.

Supply chains won’t flip on ‘like a switch,’ fertilizer group says

Even in the best-case scenario for resuming key cargoes through the Strait of Hormuz, it will take time for disrupted energy and fertilizer markets to recover, says Corey Rosenbusch, president and CEO of The Fertilizer Institute.

“While the strait is open or reopening, it's really just an early step,” Rosenbusch said in a news briefing on Friday. “Supply chains won't automatically just be flipped back on like a switch. Restoring some of these trade flows and repositioning supply chains will take some time.”

Rosenbusch stressed three points based on talks with the industry and farmers:

  • The current planting season is largely finished in the Northern Hemisphere, including the U.S. Even with the strait closed, some fertilizer in the last few weeks has dropped to prewar values.  

  • TFI estimates 3 million to 4 million tons of urea, a key nitrogen fertilizer, are stuck behind the strait. It’s not clear how much of the urea has already been sold. “You can’t necessarily assume that this is going to be new supply coming into the market, especially with some of the dependence of India from that region,” Rosenbusch said.

  • The extent of damage to facilities in the region isn’t known. It could take months for some plants to come back online, especially for oil and natural gas. That’s important because sulfur, a key raw material for phosphate fertilizer, is a major byproduct of oil refineries. The lack of access to sulfur has caused phosphate plants around the world to curb production. 

Roughly 40% of the world's traded export urea passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and about half of sulfur supplies, according to TFI. 

Rural hospitals may be shortchanged by OBBBA’s transformation program, senators say

Four senators — three Democrats and a Republican — are worried that the Rural Health Transformation Program’s current structure may put rural hospitals with limited staffing and resources at a disadvantage.

In a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, the lawmakers wrote that “larger systems and organizations often have substantially greater administrative capacity and resources to compete for and manage grant funding, while smaller rural providers ... may lack the staffing, infrastructure or technical support necessary to fully participate.

They urged the agency to lift a cap on infrastructure and capital improvements for rural facilities and clarify whether providers can receive direct payments.

The lawmakers include Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado, and Alex Padilla of California.

Keep in mind: The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program was created by Republican lawmakers as partial compensation for Medicaid cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. 

Senate passes bill to update broadband mapping requirements

A bill requiring the Federal Communications Commission to reevaluate how it creates its broadband map has passed the Senate.

The MAP for Broadband Funding Act would require the FCC to coordinate with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration “on a reasonable and timely basis” when collecting data for its broadband funding map, which has helped to shape where federal broadband funding goes.

The bill would also require the commission to seek public comment on the map’s functionality, transparency and completeness. It now heads to the House. 

Take note: FCC’s broadband maps have played a major role in shaping NTIA's decisions for how to divvy up $42.45 billion in broadband funding to states through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program. However, states and researchers have warned of glaring flaws in the FCC’s past maps, though the agency has sought to improve these in recent years through a public challenge process. 

Bills on specialty crops, food supply chains unveiled ahead of Senate farm bill

As the Senate goes into its last five working days in Washington before a two-week recess, the Senate Agriculture Committee is expected to unveil draft farm bill legislation by Friday.

Ahead of the highly anticipated farm legislation, bipartisan members of the Ag Committee introduced a measure to give food banks more access to fresh produce.

A bill from Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., seeks to get nutritious food to families while also supporting growers of specialty crops like fruits and vegetables.

The bill comes as lawmakers are still trying to figure out how to get greater economic relief to farmers, including specialty crop producers.

Senate Ag Committee members last week also unveiled legislation to bolster resilience in U.S. food supply chains and expand markets as farmers “face enormous uncertainty in their ability to grow and sell products and as input costs continue to rise.”

That bill is backed by Schiff, Hyde-Smith, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the committee, and Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va.  

USMCA should remain three-nation agreement, Harden says

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement should stay that way, the head of the U.S. Dairy Export Council tells Agri-Pulse Open Mic’s Jeff Nalley.

“I’d hate, personally, to see it unravel and be broken into pieces,” USDEC President and CEO Krysta Harden says in an interview. “I hope it doesn't come to that.”

In the USMCA review, Harden says Canada has to be held to previous promises to open up its market to U.S. dairy products.

“How the Canadian government administers their [tariff rate quotas] seems to almost intentionally be designed to limit our access, so we really have to make sure that we work on that very closely,” she says.

The European Union, she adds, is “certainly a very prominent and worthy competitor. … Our aggravation, and I'm using a very nice word for this discussion with the EU, is they continue to want to artificially limit our use of names of common food names for certain types of cheeses like Parmesan or feta. They think they own those and control those and don't want us to be able to use them, so they use that as a nontariff barrier in many ways or try to in markets across the globe.”

Listen to Agri-Pulse Open Mic here.

Final word

“Shocks come quickly and recovery comes slow, and unfortunately, I think that's what we're going to see in fertilizer markets as well.” — The Fertilizer Institute senior economist Veronica Nigh on the outlook for global crop nutrient markets amid expectations of a full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.