US President Donald Trump announced a "massive deal" to buy Belarusian potash at prices far below what the US pays Canada, but Belarusian dictator Alyaksandr Lukashenka publicly contradicted him the same day, saying Belarus has no spare volumes to sell.
Washington has spent a year courting Lukashenka with sanctions relief and envoy visits in pursuit of both prisoner releases and trade openings—but the potash episode shows the limits of that courtship when the dictator's own supply chain cannot deliver what the US President has already promised his voters.
Trump promised cheaper potash for American farmers
Trump wrote on Truth Social on 21 September:
"The United States is working on a massive Deal with respect to the purchase of Potash from Belarus. The pricing would be for substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our Farmers and Ranchers."
Potash is a key ingredient in fertilizer. Canada is the world's largest supplier—the US takes 53% of Canadian potash exports, and 80% of the potash American farms use comes from Canada. Canadian potash remains exempt from US tariffs despite the ongoing trade war between the two countries.
The announcement came as Trump's trade dispute with Ottawa deepened—he recently called Canada a "terrible trade partner," and on 16 September European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen offered Canada associate EU membership, which Trump said could be a "hostile act."
Lukashenka said all output is contracted
The same day, Lukashenka told officials Belarus cannot deliver. "Even if we wanted to supply potash to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes—everything is contracted," he said during a meeting with the head of Belarus's State Customs Committee, Uladzimir Arlouski.
Arlouski reported that 85% of all Belarusian exports and imports now move eastward—primarily to China, other Asian countries, and Russia. Budget revenues grew almost 3.5% over eight months, and 5.2% so far this month.
A deal built on sanctions relief and prisoner swaps
The potash announcement followed a year-long US effort to engage Lukashenka. Washington lifted sanctions on Belarus's potash industry in exchange for the release of hundreds of political prisoners. US special envoy John Cole has played the central role, meeting Lukashenka last week and securing the release of 25 prisoners—far fewer than the 200 he had previously promised.
Over the course of Cole's effort, at least several hundred people have been freed, among them Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Bialiatski and Siarhei Tsikhanouski, husband of the internationally recognized winner of Belarus's 2020 presidential election. But human rights groups and freed prisoners say Lukashenka runs a "carousel"—arresting new political opponents to replace the ones he releases. Lukashenka denied this. "There are no political prisoners in Belarus," he claimed during last week's meeting with Cole.
With US midterms six weeks away on 3 November and the Republican Party struggling in the polls, Trump has been scrambling for wins on fuel and food prices. The same week, he urged Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian refineries, blaming Ukraine rather than his own war with Iran for record US diesel prices—a move a senior European official told Politico was a search for "scapegoats."
