Full record
MissgeopoliticsMiddle East food imports from Latin America (chiefly Brazil) will be cut off / go away
A scored prediction by Peter Zeihan, made on .
Scored prediction
Missgeopolitics“the Middle East largely Imports its food from Latin America with Brazil being the single largest contributor so that's going away”
Middle East food imports from Latin America (chiefly Brazil) will be cut off / go away
- Made on
- 2023-01-02
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 3 / 5
- Effect on score
- -1.33
What counted as right
- Status
- resolved
- Settled on
- 2026-01-02
Whether Middle East food imports from Latin America (especially Brazil) are substantially disrupted or cut off within ~3 years of Jan 2023.
Criterion (Middle East food imports from Latin America, esp. Brazil, SUBSTANTIALLY disrupted/cut off within ~3 years of Jan 2023) is NOT met. Through end-2025 the trade strengthened to record levels (UAE & Saudi chicken imports up 5.5%/7.1% in 2025; ME ag imports from Brazil +20.4% in 2024). A modest Strait-of-Hormuz-related dip appears in early 2026 (~at/after the deadline) but is a temporary logistics effect, not a structural cut-off, and Brazil-Gulf food trade was otherwise growing and projected to keep growing into 2026. Resolved_on set to the deadline. Evidence is from industry/trade reporting (ABPA via The Poultry Site, Farmonaut citing Brazil's Ag Ministry); a verify stage could anchor to Brazil's official SECEX/Comex Stat or ABPA primary releases for confirmation.
Sources
2023: Cheers to a New Year of Disruption
YouTube ·
Evidence of what happened
The OPPOSITE of a cut-off occurred: Middle East food imports from Brazil GREW strongly. Brazil's overall agribusiness exports to the Middle East rose 20.4% in 2024 (total ag exports US$164.4B, second-highest on record), driven by renewed engagement with UAE and Saudi Arabia.
In 2025 Brazil set a record poultry export year (5.324M tons). The UAE was the #1 destination for Brazilian chicken at 479,900 t (+5.5% vs 2024) and Saudi Arabia imported 397,200 t (+7.1%). USDA's Dubai office expects UAE chicken imports from Brazil to rise again in 2026. This is sustained, growing - not disrupted - Middle East food import flow from Latin America through the deadline window.
The only disruption noted was minor and largely AFTER the deadline: Brazilian exports to the Persian Gulf fell ~31% in March (2026), with poultry down 13.8%, tied to Strait-of-Hormuz shipping tensions - a short-term logistics dip, not a cut-off, and occurring around/after the Jan 2026 deadline rather than constituting a structural severing within the window.
Corrections
No public corrections.
Effect on the score
-1.33- How sure they sounded
- 85%
- Outcome
- Miss
- Importance
- 3 / 5
This page shows the scored prediction as published; the site doesn't recompute or adjust the score.
Where this came from
Middle East food imports from Latin America (chiefly Brazil…- Methodology version
- v1.0.0
- Last computed
- August 2, 2026
- Made on
- 2023-01-02
How this profile was built
Scored by independent judges
Predictions gathered and sourced
Independently verified against sources