Trump announced preparations for a huge Belarusian potash deal. Lukashenko said the same day that there are no free volumes

US President Donald Trump announced on Monday that the United States is preparing a "huge deal" to purchase potash fertilizers from Belarus at a price significantly lower than what it currently pays Canada. Alexander Lukashenko said the same day that Belarus has no free volumes because its full-year production is already under contract. He spoke on a different occasion, not as a response to Washington, but in substance the two statements contradict each other.

A deal the other side disputes

Trump wrote on Truth Social that the United States is working on a huge deal to buy potash from Belarus and that "The pricing would be substantially less than we are currently paying to Canada, very good news for our farmers and ranchers." Capital Press ↗

On the same day, Lukashenko was receiving a report from the head of the State Customs Committee, Vladimir Orlovsky, on redirecting trade flows — that is, he was speaking about a different topic than the American offer. According to his office, he said on that occasion that "Even if we wanted to supply (potash) to other, Western markets, we simply do not have those volumes — everything is contracted." Negotiations with the American side are ongoing, he said, but large deliveries are not possible because this year's fertilizer output is already sold. Nasha Niva ↗

Potassium salts are, alongside nitrogen and phosphorus, the third basic nutrient in fertilizers, and the United States imports nearly all of its consumption. According to the US Geological Survey, between 2021 and 2024, seventy-nine percent of imports came from Canada and twelve percent from Russia. U.S. Geological Survey ↗

Prisoners in exchange for sanctions relief

Trump's announcement is not an isolated business idea but the latest step in a year-long exchange. On December 13, 2025, Minsk released 123 people, including opposition figures Maria Kalesnikava and Viktar Babaryka, and two days later the US Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a license permitting transactions with the Belaruskali concern and two other Belarusian companies. This was not a full lifting of sanctions — the license did not unfreeze already frozen assets. OFAC ↗

Negotiations are led by John Coale, whom Trump nominated as special envoy for Belarus in November 2025. In an interview published in March 2026, he suggested that a broader deal could mean the normalization of both diplomatic and economic relations. Kyiv Independent ↗

On September 11, Lukashenko told journalists that after the sanctions relief, Belarus resumed selling potash to the United States. At the same time, he is demanding that Washington return more than 40 million dollars that he says are stuck in the American banking system. This figure comes from him and has not been independently confirmed. The Hill ↗

The road west runs through Klaipėda

Lithuania has banned the transit of Belarusian potash through its territory and the port of Klaipėda since February 2022, after Lukashenko's regime crushed the mass protests of 2020. The port's transshipment volume subsequently fell by twenty-one percent, from 45.6 to 36.1 million tons. Port of Klaipėda ↗

Belaruskali is claiming more than twelve billion dollars in international arbitration over the lost contract. Exports have since flowed through Russian ports, mainly Ust-Luga and St. Petersburg, which makes the route to America longer and more expensive. Carnegie Endowment ↗

Washington already tried to get around this obstacle in the spring. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported in May that the United States sent Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine an unsigned and undated proposal under which "The United States is interested in exploring potential routes for the transit of Belarusian potash to alleviate global shortages." Under the document, transit revenues were to go toward Ukraine's defense. Ukraine's foreign ministry confirmed receipt without comment, Poland's did not respond, and Lithuania's foreign minister denied receiving a formal proposal, though he acknowledged that Washington is applying pressure. RFE/RL ↗

The independent Belarusian website Nasha Niva adds its own interpretation: according to it, the obstacle to large deliveries to America is not so much contracted volumes as the refusal of European countries to let Belarusian fertilizer through Baltic ports. Nasha Niva ↗

Canada speaks of blood potash, Europe holds its ban

The loudest response came from Saskatchewan, the province with the world's largest potash mining. Its premier, Scott Moe, declared that "Buying blood potash from Belarus is supporting Russian aggression." and that it "is wrong and doesn't make sense." He noted that more than forty countries have imposed sanctions on Minsk. CBC News ↗

Canada has something to defend. According to its Ministry of Natural Resources, 53 percent of its potash exports went to the United States in 2024. Natural Resources Canada ↗

Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who was in New York at the time for the UN General Assembly, warned that "Any deal with the regime is very risky," and that this is no time to trade with Minsk while potash revenues go toward repression and support for Russia's war machine. Kyiv Post ↗

Meanwhile, the European Union has moved in the opposite direction from Washington. In February of this year, it unanimously extended sanctions against Belarus until the end of February 2027, and a direct ban on imports of Belarusian potash fertilizers remains part of them. Council of the European Union ↗

The difference between the two sides of the Atlantic, then, is not in price but in whether the goods can be obtained at all. An American farmer can legally buy Belarusian fertilizer; a European one cannot. The tariffs the Union has imposed on fertilizers from Russia and Belarus since July 2025 do not apply to potash at all — they apply to nitrogen and certain combined fertilizers. EUR-Lex ↗

Limits of this account

The deal does not yet exist. Trump speaks of preparations, Lukashenko of having nothing to deliver, and neither of them has disclosed a volume, price, or timeline. Lukashenko's claim about contracted volumes also cannot be independently verified and may itself be a negotiating position, since he is simultaneously demanding the release of frozen funds.

Caution is also warranted on the other side of the dispute. Saskatchewan has a direct commercial interest in this criticism, since more than half of Canada's potash exports go to the United States. The two percentages in the text also measure different things: seventy-nine percent refers to Canada's share of US imports, fifty-three percent to the US share of Canadian exports. So this is not a data discrepancy.

Nor do we know whether Lukashenko's words about contracted volumes and Trump's announcement are even related. They came on the same day, but in a different context.

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Illustrative photo: the Belaruskali potash mine in Salihorsk. Photo: Homoatrox, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.