Fox News and Trump’s Fraud on US’s Russian Uranium
The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler on Oct. 31, 2017 deflated the Fox and Trump Halloween scare that Russia had 20% of US Uranium. Actually, the uranium in question belonged to a Canadian company named “Uranium One”. The 20% figure was just the minuscule amount of low grade uranium that was mined by chemically dissolving it in a process called in-situ recovery (ISR), and licensed to Uranium One. That percentage is now about 10%. But Russia has no license to export uranium, anyway.
The real reason Russia wanted Uranium One, was for its uranium in Kazakhstan.
A standard way to mislead is to quote percentages, when stating actual amounts would make the statement appear ridiculous. Let’s look at the actual numbers, from the same article.
For 2013, the world uranium production was 59,331 tons, of which US production was only 1,796 tons, or 3.0%. Of that, Uranium One production was 362 tons, or a MASSIVE 20%. It was a minuscule 0.6% of world production (that is one part in 164 of world production). Do we really think that that was as important as the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to influence the election. And trying to build a Trump tower in Moscow. And hiring the man who got Moscow’s man elected as President of Ukraine to lead his campaign.
But wait, here’s an update to 2016. World production was about the same at 62,266 tons. US production was lower at 1,126 tons. But the Uranium One production was a HUGE 23 TONS!!!!! That made it 2.0% of US production, no longer 20%. It was also 0.037% of world production, or one part in 2,707 of world production. Do you feel a little misled now? For comparison, Uranium One mined almost 3,000 tons in 2016 from Kazakhstan.
Let’s look at the HUGE economic impact of the US uranium produced by Uranium One last year. Uranium now cost about $20 per pound. In the last year it fluctuated between $18 and $25 dollars a pound. So let’s use the current $20 figure. So 23 tons X 2,000 lbs/ ton X $20/ pound = $920,000. Almost a million dollars. That must really burn Trump, who spends $3.6 million to go to Mar-a-Lago for a weekend.
Well, who could have known the accurate numbers on this? Let’s see. Fox News also has a business network called Fox Business Network, FBN. In 2015 this was accessible to 74 million cable subscribers, or 64% of houses with TVs. They had the resources. Then there is President Trump, who has the Dept. of the Treasury, the Bureau of Mines, the Council of Economic Advisors, the CIA, etc. at his disposal. Is this how Trump is going to get us to trust him on his BEST-EVER leadership of our economy, budget, taxes, trade deals, and health care?
This is not a new, hot, issue as it is made out to be. It was done in 2010. It also came up during the election last year.
