President Donald Trump declared on Tuesday that the US was negotiating a "massive deal" to buy potash fertiliser from Belarus.
Trump said the price from Belarus would be "substantially less" than what the United States currently pays Canada, portraying the possible change as "very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers".
"The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus," Trump said in a post on Truth Social. "The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers."
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The mineral boosts yields and enhances a plant's resilience to disease and crop quality.
The move shows that Trump is prepared to use other suppliers as leverage in his trade fights with Canada, the country that provides the great majority of potash imports to the United States. After the sanctions were lifted, it might signify a further thaw in Washington's relations with Belarus, Reuters reported.
On September 11, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a strong ally of Russia, said that his nation has started supplying potash to the US again after US sanctions were lifted. However, Lukashenko stated that he wants Washington to repatriate more than $40 million that is "stuck" in the US banking system.
Russia and Belarus are significant producers of potash, but shipping those supplies to the US via Russia's Arctic has become costly due to sanctions and the closure of a vital port on Lithuania's Baltic coast. Although Russia continues to export potash to the US, Canada, a neighbouring country, provides the vast majority of the supply.
According to StoneX fertiliser analyst Josh Linville, importing Belarusian potash is unlikely to boost domestic availability or lower costs for American farmers significantly. "I'm afraid the impact would be limited. We have not struggled to find potash," he said. "We have more than enough to go around. It is phosphate and nitrogen that we need help with."
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Even with access to Lithuania's Klaipeda port, depressed potash prices make long-distance transatlantic shipping economically impractical, according to Linville.
Conflict involving Iran has choked global fertiliser supply chains, halting the flow of nitrogen, natural gas, and sulfur—an essential input for phosphate extraction—out of the Persian Gulf.
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