Trump Says US Is Negotiating Belarus Potash Deal to Undercut Canadian Prices

President Donald Trump announced Monday, September 21, that his administration is negotiating what he called a "massive deal" to buy potash from Belarus, saying the price would run "substantially less" than what the US currently pays Canada. He posted the claim on Truth Social, framing it as good news for American farmers and ranchers.

No contract has been signed. No price, volume, or timeline has been made public. What exists right now is a presidential social media post and a diplomatic track record between US envoy John Coale and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko that stretches back more than a year.

The numbers don't obviously support the word "massive."

Canada dominates this market. According to the Canadian government, Canada exported roughly 22.9 million tonnes of potash in 2024, about 39% of global exports. Global News cites US Geological Survey data putting Canada at 79% of US potash imports, with Russia a distant second at 11% and Belarus fourth at just 3%. BNN Bloomberg and CTV News, citing different figures, put Canada's share of US imports at nearly 85% and rank Belarus third globally, behind Russia and Canada. Either way, Belarus is a minor player next to Canada, and the USGS says flatly there is "no substitute" for potash in agriculture, according to Global News.

Saskatchewan runs all 10 of Canada's active potash mines and supplies more than 86% of Canada's US-bound potash, per BNN Bloomberg and CTV News. Losing that customer base would hit Saskatchewan hard, which is exactly why Premier Scott Moe has publicly rejected using potash as a retaliation weapon against US tariffs. "The United States of America, most assuredly, would switch to buying potash from other nations around the world. We would lose a long-term customer to some degree," Moe said, according to BNN Bloomberg. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has echoed that position. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has taken the opposite view, pushing to leverage Canadian minerals, oil, and electricity against US tariffs.

Why Belarus is even an option now.

Belaruskali, the state potash producer, was under heavy US sanctions until recently. The Trump administration eased those sanctions in December 2025 and lifted them fully in March 2026, according to Crypto Briefing and the Epoch Times, in exchange for Lukashenko releasing roughly 250 political prisoners that same month. On September 16, Belarus freed 25 more prisoners, including former TUT.BY news portal head Liudmila Chekina and journalist Andrei Aliaksandrau, in exchange for further sanctions relief, the Epoch Times reported. Coale told Reuters he expects to return to Minsk within a month to seek the release of hundreds more detainees, including journalists, lawyers, and activists.

Sanctions relief and now a potential purchasing deal are being exchanged for prisoner releases from a government Freedom House scores at 7 out of 100 on its freedom index, compared to Canada's 97, according to Global News. Belarus remains a close ally of Russia, allowed its territory to be used as a staging ground for the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and conducted joint nuclear drills with Moscow earlier this year, according to Euronews and Global News. The European Union still bans Belarusian potash imports outright and has frozen Belaruskali's assets, a sharper line than Washington is now drawing.

There's a legitimate argument for freeing political prisoners through diplomacy rather than leaving them to rot in a Lukashenko jail cell, and Coale's negotiations have produced real, verifiable releases. There's also a legitimate concern that routing new American agricultural spending toward a state-controlled Russian ally, right as that regime hosts nuclear drills with Moscow, is a strange way to punish Canada.

The bigger fight this sits inside.

This announcement didn't happen in a vacuum. Canada suspended trade talks with the US on August 21 after Prime Minister Mark Carney accused Washington of inserting last-minute demands, including restrictions on Canada striking trade deals with other countries. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told Fox News that Canada "looked at" the "best deal in the world" on steel, aluminum, autos, and lumber and "turned around" wanting more tariff relief instead. Trump has since escalated with new tariff rounds and, in a move even Fox News flagged as part of the fight, signed an executive order renaming Lake Ontario "Lake America."

US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra said in June that America needs a "tremendous amount of things" from Canada, including potash, because there aren't "lots of other places" to get it, according to BNN Bloomberg. That statement sits awkwardly next to Trump's own claim, made the same month, that there's "nothing" the US needs from Canada.

The open question is simple: does a deal actually get signed, and if so, at what price and volume, given Belarus produces a small fraction of what Canada ships? Coale's next round of talks in Minsk, expected within a month, may bring more prisoner releases. Whether it also brings an actual potash contract with real numbers attached remains to be seen.